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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF A^IERIfA. 



WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE 



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When 1 was Your Age 



BY 



LAURA E RICHARDS 

AUTIIOR OF "CAPTAIN JANUARY," "MELODY," 
"QUEEN HILUEGARDE," ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 



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BOSTON \*^' 

ESTES AND LAURI AT 
1894 



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Copyright, 189S, 
By Lstes and Lauriat. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambrioge, U.S.A. 



TO THE 



UBtai anti "^anattti iUlemorg of mu jFatfjer, 

DR. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE. 



TAy voice comes down the rolling vears 

Like ring of steel on steel ; 
With it I hear the tramp of steeds. 

And the trumpet's silver peal. 

I see thee ride thy fearless way, 

With steadfast look intent, 
God's servant, still by night and day. 

On his high errand bent. 

Thy lance lay ever in the rest 

'Gainst tyranny and wrong. 
Thy steed was swift., thine aim was sure. 

Thy sivord 7vas keen and strong. 



But were the fainting to be raised. 

The sorrowing comforted^ — 
The warrior vanished^ and men saw 

An angel stoop instead. 

soldier Father ! dear I hold 
Thine honored name to-day; 

Thy high soul draws mine eyes above. 

And beacons me the way. 

• 
And when my heart beats quick to learn 

Some deed of high cfnprise, 

1 almost see the answering flash 
That lightens from thine eyes. 

J greet thee fair ! I bless thee dear ! 

And here, ift token meet, 
I pluck these buds from memory's wreath. 

And lay them at thy feet. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

I. Ourselves 13 

II. More about Ourselves 27 

III. Green Peace 42 

IV. The Valley 62 

V. Our Father 77 

VI. JuLLA Ward .... 107 

VII. Our Mother 129 

VIII. Our Teachers 163 

IX. Our Friends 180 

X. Our Guests 194 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 
Green Peace Frontispiece 

Maud , . 43 

Laura was found in the Sugar-Barrel ... 53 

Dr. Samuel Gridlev Howe 79 

The Doctor to the Rescue ! 97 

Julia Ward and her Brothers, as Children . 109 

(From a miniature by Miss Anne Hall.) 

Lieut.-Colonel Samuel Ward 117 

(Born Nov. 17, 1756; Died Aug. 16, 1832.) 

Julia Ward 125 

Julia Ward Howe 131 

Julia Romana Howe 149 

Julia Ward Howe 157 

(From a recent photograph.) 

Laura E. Richards 177 



WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

OURSELVES. 

There were five of us. There had been six, 
but the Beautiful Boy was taken home to 
heaven while he was still very little ; and it 
was good for the rest of us to know that 
there was always one to wait for and wel- 
come us in the Place of Light to which we 
should go some day. So, as I said, there 
were five of us here, —Julia Romana, Flor- 
ence, Harry, Laura, and Maud. Julia was the 
eldest. She took her second name from the 
ancient city in which she was born, and she 
was as beautiful as a soft Italian evening, — 
with dark hair, clear gray eyes, perfect fea- 
tures, and a complexion of such pure and 
wonderful red and white as I have never 



14 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

seen in any other face. She had a look as 
if when she came away from heaven she 
had been allowed to remember it, while 
others must forget ; and she walked in a 
dream always, of beauty and poetry, think- 
ing of strange things. Very shy she was, 
very sensitive. When Flossy (this was 
F"lorence's home name) called her " a great 
red-haired giant," she wept bitterly, and re- 
proached her sister for hurting her feelings. 
Julia knew everything, according to the be- 
lief of the younger children. What story 
was there she could not tell } She it was 
who led the famous before-breakfast walks, 
when we used to start off at six o'clock and 
walk to the Yellow Chases' (we never knew 
any other name for them ; it was the house 
that was yellow, not the people) at the top 
of the long hill, or sometimes even to the 
windmill beyond it, where we could see the 
miller at work, all white and dusty, and 
watch the white sails moving slowly round. 
And on the way Julia told us stories, from 
Scott or Shakspere ; or gave us the plot of 
some opera, " Iirnani " or " Trovatore," with 



OURSELVES. 15 

snatches of song here and there. " Ai nostri 
monti ritornaremo," whenever I hear this 
familiar air ground out by a hand-organ, 
everything fades from my eyes save a long 
white road fringed with buttercups and wild 
marigolds, and five little figures, with rosy 
hungry faces, trudging along, and listening 
to the story of the gypsy queen and her 
stolen troubadour. 

Julia wrote stories herself, too, — very 
wonderful stories, we all thought, and, in- 
deed, I think so still. She began when she 
was a little girl, not more than six or seven 
years old. There lies beside me now on the 
table a small book, about five inches square, 
bound in faded pink and green, and filled 
from cover to cover with writing in a 
cramped, childish hand. It is a book of 
novels and plays, written by our Julia be- 
fore she was ten years old ; and I often 
think that the beautiful and helpful things 
she wrote in her later years were hardly 
more remarkable than these queer little ro- 
mances. They are very sentimental ; no 
child of eight, save perhaps Marjorie Flem- 



1 6 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

ing, was ever so sentimental as Julia, — " Leo- 
nora Mayre ; A Tale," " The Lost Suitor," 
" The Offers." I must quote a scene from 
the last-named play. 

Scene I. 

Parlor at Mrs. Evans's. Florence Evans alone. 

Enter Annie. 

A. Well, Florence, Bruin is going to make an oftcr, 
I suppose. 

F. Why so .? 

A. Here 's a pound of candy from him. He said 
he had bought it for you, but on arriving he 
was afraid it was too trifling a gift ; but hop- 
ing you would not throw it a\va}% he re- 
quested me to give it to that virtuous young 
lady, as he calls you. 

F. Well, I am young, but I did not know that I 
was virtuous. 

A. I think you are. 

Scene II. 

Parlor. Mr. Bruin alone. 

Mr. B. Why doesn't she come? She does n't 
usually keep me waiting. 



OURSELVES. ly 

Enter FLORENCE. 

F. How do you do? I am sorry to have kept 
you waiting. 

Mr. B. I have not been here more than a few 
minutes. Your parlor is so warm this cold 
day that I could wait. \La7nrhs. 

Y . \v)\\ sent me some candy the other day which 
I liked very much. 

Mr. B. Well, you liked the candy; so I pleased 
you. Now you can please me. I don't 
care about presents ; I had rather have some- 
thing that can love me. You. 

F. I do not love you. \^Exit Mr. Bruin. 

Scene III. 
Florence alone. Enter Mr. Cas. 

F. How do you do? 

Mr. C. Very well. 

V . It is a very pleasant day. 

Mr. C. Yes. It would be still pleasanter if you 
will be my bride. I want a respectful re- 
fusal, but prefer a cordial acception. 

F. You can have the former. \_Exit Mr. Cas. 

Scene IV. 
Florence luith Mr. Emerson. 
Mr. E. I love you, Florence. You may not love 
me, for I am inferior to you ; but tell me 



1 8 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

whether you do or not. If my hopes are 
true, let me know it, and I shall not be 
doubtful any longer. If they are not, tell 
me, and I shall not expect any more. 
F. They are. \^Exit Mr. Emersox. 

The fifth scene of this remarkable drama 
is laid in the church, and is very thrilling. 
The stage directions are brief, but it is evi- 
dent from the text that as Mr. Emerson and 
his taciturn bride advance to the altar, 
Messrs. Cas and Bruin, " to gain some pri- 
vate ends," do the same. The Bishop is in- 
troduced without previous announcement. 

Scene V. 

Bishop. Are you ready? 

Mr. B. Yes. 

Bishop. Mr. Emerson, are you ready? 

Mr. C. Yes. 

Bishop. Mr. Emerson, I am waiting. 

Bruin and C.\?> \_togctha'']. So am I. 

Mr. E. I am ready. But what have these men 

to do with our marriage? 
Mr. B. Florence, I charge you with a breacli of 

promise. You said you would be n\y bride. 
F. I did not. 



OURSELVES. 19 

Mr. C. You promised me. 
V. When ? 

Mr. C. a month ago. You said you would marry 

me. 
Mr. B. a fortnight ago you promised me. You 

said we would be married to-day. 
Mr. C Bishop, what does this mean? Florence 
Evans promised to marry me, and this very 
day was fixed upon. And see how false 
she has been ! She has, as you see, prom- 
ised both of us, and now is going to wed 
this man. 
Bishop. But Mr. Emerson and Miss Evans made 
the arrangements with me; how is it that 
neither of you said anything of it before- 
hand? 
Mr. C. I forgot. 
^^^-^- So did I. \F. weeps. 

Enter Annie. 
A. I thought I should be too late to be your 
bridesmaid, but I find I am in time. But I 
thought you were to be married at half-past 
four, and it is five by the church clock. 
Mr. E.^ We should have been married by this 
time, but these men say that Florence has 
promised to marry them. Is it true, 
Florence? 
F. No. [Bessy, her younger sister, supports her. 



20 WHEN 1 WAS YOUR AGE. 

A. It is n't true, for you know, Edward Bruin, 

that )'0u and I arc engaged ; and Mr. Cas 
and Bcss\' have been for some time. And 
both engagements have been out for more 
than a week. 

[Bessy looks reproachfully at Cas. 

B. Why, Joseph Cas ! 

BlsiIOl'. Come, Mr. Emerson ! I see that Mr. 

Cas and Mr. Bruin have been tr\^ing to 

worry your bride. But their story can't be 

true, for these other young ladies say that 

they are engaged to them. 
F. They each of them made me an offer, which I 

refused. \/rJie BiSHOP marries tJicm. 

F. \^After they ai-e inarriedP\ I shall never again 

be troubled with such offers \^looks at C.\s 

rt-z/^-/ Bruin] ^s yours! 

I meant to gi\e one scene, and I have 
given the whole play, not knowing where to 
stop. There was nothing funny about it to 
Julia, The heroine, with her wonderful com- 
mand of silence, was her ideal of maiden 
reserve and dignity; the deep-dyed villan\- 
of Bruin and Cas, the retirinsf manners of 
the fortunate Emerson, the singular spriglit- 
liness of the Bishop, were all perfectly natural. 
as her vivid mjnd saw them. 



OURSELVES. 21 

So she was bitterly grieved one day when 
a dear friend of the family, to whom our 
mother had read the play, rushed up to her, 
and seizing her hand, cried, — 

" 'Julia, will you have me ? ' ' No ! ' Exit 
Mr. Bruin." 

Deeply grieved the little maiden was ; and it 
cannot have been very long after that time that 
•she gave the little book to her dearest aunt, who 
has kept it carefully through all these years. 

If Julia was like Milton's " Penseroso," 
Flossy was the " Allegro " in person, or like 
Wordsworth's maiden, — 

" A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay." 

She was very small as a child. One day a 
lady, not knowing that the little girl was 
within hearing, said to her mother, '• What a 
pity Flossy is so small ! " 

" I 'm big inside ! " cried a little angry voice 
at her elbow; and there was Flossy, swelling 
with rage, like an offended bantam. And 
she was big inside! her lively, active spirit 
seemed to break through the little body and 
carry it along in spite of itself. Sometimes 



22 IV HE A' I IV AS YOUR AGE. 

it was an impish spirit; always it was an 
enterprising one. 

She it was who invented the dances which 
seemed to us such wonderful performances. 
We danced every evening in the great parlor, 
our mother playing for us on the piano. 
There was the " Macbeth " dance, in which 
Flossy figured as Lady Macbeth. With a 
dagger in her hand, she crept and rushed 
and pounced and swooped about in a most 
terrifying manner, always graceful as a fairy. 
A sofa-pillow played the part of Duncan, 
and had a very hard time of it. The " Julius 
Caesar " dance was no less tragic ; we all 
took part in it, and stabbed right and left 
with sticks of kindling-wood. One got the 
curling-stick and was happy, for it was the 
ne.xt thing to the dagger, which no one 
but Flossy could have. Then there was the 
dance of the " Four Seasons," which had 
four figures. In spring we sowed, in summer 
we reaped; in autumn we hunted the deer, 
and in winter there was much jingling of 
bells. The hunting: fissure was most excit- 
ing. It was performed with knives (kindling- 



OURSELVES. 23 

wood), as Flossy thought them more romantic 
than guns ; they were held close to the side, 
with point projecting, and in this way we 
moved with a quick cJiasse step, which, 
coupled with a savage frown, was supposed 
to be peculiarly deadly. 

Flossy invented many other amusements, 
too. There was the school-loan system. 
We had school in the little parlor at that 
time, and our desks had lids that lifted up. 
In her desk Flossy kept a number of precious 
things, which she lent to the younger chil- 
dren for so many pins an hour. The most 
valuable thing was a set of three colored 
worsted balls, red, green, and blue. You 
could set them twirling, and they would keep 
going for ever so long. It was a delightful 
sport; but they were very expensive, costing, 
I think, twenty pins an hour. It took a long 
time to collect twenty pins, for of course it 
was not fair to take them out of the pin- 
cushions. 

Then there was a glass eye-cup without a 
foot; that cost ten pins, and was a great 
favorite with us. You stuck it in your eye. 



24 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE 

and tried to hold it there while you winked 
with the other. Of course all this was done 
behind the raised desk-lid, and I have some- 
times wondered what the teacher was doing 
that she did not find us out sooner. She 
was not very observant, and I am quite sure 
she was afraid of Flossy. One sad day, 
however, she caught Laura with the precious 
glass in her eye, and it was taken away for- 
ever. It was a bitter thing to the child (I 
know all about it, for I was Laura) to be 
told that she could never have it again, even 
after school. She had paid her ten pins, and 
she could not see what right the teacher had 
to take the glass away. But after that the 
school-loan system was forbidden, and I 
have never known what became of the three 
worsted balls. 

Flossy also told stories ; or rather she 
told one story which had no end, and of 
which we never tired. Under the sea, she 
told us, lived a fairy named Patty, who was 
a most intimate friend of hers, and whom 
she visited every night. This fairy dwelt in 
a palace hollowed out of a single immense 



OURSELVES. 



-3 



pearl. The rooms in it were countless, and 
were furnished in a singular and delightful 
manner. In one room the chairs and sofas 
were of chocolate; in another, of fresh straw- 
berries; in another, of peaches, — and so on. 
The floors were paved with squares of choco- 
late and cream candy; the windows were of 
transparent barley-sugar, and when you broke 
off the arm of a chair and ate it, or took a 
square or two out of the pavement, they were 
immediately replaced, so that there was no 
trouble for any one. Patty had a ball every 
evening, and Flossy never failed to go. 
Sometimes, when we were good, she would 
take us ; but the singular thing about it was 
that we never remembered what had hap- 
pened. In the morning our infant minds 
were a cheerful blank, till Flossy told us what 
a glorious time we had had at Patty's the 
night before, how we had danced with Willie 
Winkie, and how much ice-cream we had 
eaten. We listened to the recital with unal- 
loyed delight, and believed every word of it, 
till a sad day of awakening came. We were 
always made to understand that we could not 



26 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

bring away anything from Patty's, and were 
content with this arrangement ; but on this 
occasion there was to be a ball of peculiar 
magnificence, and Flossy, in a fit of gener- 
osity, told Harry that he was to receive a 
pair of diamond trousers, which he would be 
allowed to bring home. Harry w-as a child 
with a taste for magnificence ; and he went 
to bed full of joy, seeing already in anticipa- 
tion the glittering of the jewelled garment, 
and the effects produced by it on the small 
boys of his acquaintance. Bitter was the 
disappointment when, on awakening in the 
morning, the chair by his bedside bore only 
the familiar brown knickerbockers, with a 
patch of a lighter shade on one knee. Harry 
wept, and would not be comforted ; and after 
that, though we still liked to hear the Patty 
stories, we felt that the magic of them was 
gone, — that they were only stories, like 
"Blue-beard" or "Jack and the Beanstalk." 



CHAPTER II. 

MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. 

Julia and Flossy did not content themselves 
with writing plays and telling stories. They 
aspired to making a language, — a real lan- 
guage, which should be all their own, and 
should have grammars and dictionaries like 
any other famous tongue. It w^as called 
Patagonian, — whether with any idea of 
future missionary work among the people 
of that remote country, or merely because 
it sounded well, I cannot say. It was a 
sinq;ular lano;uaQ^e. I wish more of it had 
survived ; but I can give only a few of its 
more familiar phrases. 

MiLLDAM — Yes. 
PiLLDAM — No 

Mouc HE — Mother. 

Bis von snout? — Are you well? 



28 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

Bruxk tu touchy snout— I am vcn- well. 
ClIlNG CIIU STICK STUMPS? — Will you have 
some doughnuts? 

These frao;ments will, I am sure, make 
my readers regret deeply the loss of this 
language, which has the merit of entire 
originality. 

As to Flossy's talent for making paper- 
dolls, it is a thing not to be described. 
There were no such paper-dolls as those. 
Their figures might not be exactly like the 
human figure, but how infinitely more 
graceful ! Their waists were so small that 
they sometimes broke in two when called 
upon to courtesy to a partner or a queen : 
that was the height of delicacy ! They had 
ringlets invariably, and very large eyes with 
amazing lashes ; they smiled with unchang- 
ing sweetness, filling our hearts with delight. 
Many and wonderful were their dresses. The 
crinoline of the day was magnified into a sort 
of vast semi-circular cloud, adorned about 
the skirt with strange patterns; one small 
doll would sometimes wear a whole sheet of 
foolscap in an evening dress ! That was 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. 29 

extravagant, but our daughters must be in the 
fashion. There was one yellow dress belong- 
ing to my doll Parthenia (a lovely creature 
of Jewish aspect, whose waist was smaller 
than her legs), which is not even now to be 
remembered without emotion. We built 
houses for the paper-dolls with books from 
the parlor table, even borrowing some from 
the bookcase when we wanted an extra suite 
of rooms. I do not say it was good for the 
books, but it was very convenient for the 
dolls. I have reason to think that our mother 
did not know of this practice. In the mat- 
ter of their taking exercise, however, she 
aided us materially, giving us sundry empty 
trinket-boxes lined with satin, which made 
the most charming carriages in the world. 
The state coach was a silver-gilt portemonnaie 
Hned with red silk. It had seen better days, 
and the clasp was broken ; but that did not 
make it less available as a coach. I wish 
you could have seen Parthenia in it ! 

I do not think we cared so much for other 
dolls, yet there were some that must be men- 
tioned. Vashti Ann was named for a cook ; 



30 IVHEX I JVAS YOUR AGE. 

she belonged to Julia, and I have an idea 
that she was of a very haughty and dis- 
agreeable temper, though I cannot remem- 
ber her personal appearance. Still more 
shadowy is my recollection of Eliza V^iddi- 
pock, — a name to be spoken with bated 
breath. What dark crime this wretched doll 
had committed to merit her fearful fate, I do 
not know; it was a thing not to be spoken 
of to the younger children, apparently. But 
I do know that she was hanged, with all 
solemnity of judge and hangman. It seems 
unjust that I should have forgotten the name 
of Julias good doll, who died, and had the 
cover of the sugar-bowl buried with her, as 
a tribute to her virtues. 

Sally Bradford and Clara both belonged 
to Laura. Sally was an india-rubber doll ; 
Clara, a doll with a china head of the old- 
fashioned kind, smooth, shining black hair, 
brilliant rosy cheeks, and calm (very cahn) 
blue eyes. I prefer this kind of doll to any 
other. Clara's life was an uneventful one, 
on the whole, and I remember only one re- 
markable thing in it. A little girl in the 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. 3 I 

neighborhood invited Laura to a dolls' party 
on a certain day: she was to bring Clara by 
special request. Great was the excitement, 
for Laura was very small, and had never yet 
gone to a party. A seamstress was in the 
house making the summer dresses, and our 
mother said that Clara should have a new 
frock for the party. It seemed a very won- 
derful thing to have a real new white muslin 
frock, made by a real seamstress, for one s 
beloved doll. Clara had a beautiful white 
neck, so the frock was made low and trimmed 
with lace. When the afternoon came, Laura 
brought some tiny yellow roses from the 
greenhouse, and the seamstress sewed them 
on down the front of the frock and round 
the neck and hem. It is not probable that 
any other doll ever looked so beautiful as 
Clara when her toilet was complete. 

Then Laura put on her own best frock, 
which was not one half so fine, and tied on 
her gray felt bonnet, trimmed with quillings 
of pink and green satin ribbon, and started 
off, the proudest and happiest child in the 
whole world. She reached the house (it was 



32 U'HEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

very near) and climl^ed up tlie long flight of 
stone steps, and stood on tiptoe to ring the 
bell, — then waited with a beating heart. 
Would there be many other dolls ? Would 
anv of them be half so lovely as Clara? 
Would there — dreadful thought ! — would 
there be big girls there ? 

The door opened. If any little girls read 
this they will now be very sorry for Laura. 
There was no dolls' party ! Rosy's mother 
(the little girl's name was Rosy) had heard 
nothing at all about it ; Rosy had gone to 
spend the afternoon with Sarah Crocker. 

" Sorry, little girl! What a pretty dolly! 
Good-by, dear ! " and then the door was shut 
again. 

Laura toddled down the long stone steps, 
and went solemnly home. She did not cry, 
because it would not be nice to cry in the 
street ; but she could not sec very clearly. 
She never went to visit Rosy again, and 
never knew whether the dolls' party had 
been forgotten, or why it was given up. 

Before leaving the subject of dolls, I must 
say a word aljout little Maud's first doll. 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. ^-i^ 

Maud was a child of rare beauty, as beautiful 
as Julia, though very different. Her fair 
hair was of such color and quality that our 
mother used to call her Silk-and-silver, a 
name which suited her well ; her eyes were 
like stars under their long black lashes. So 
brilliant, so vivid was the child's colorino- 
that she seemed to flash with silver and rosy 
light as she moved about. She was so much 
younger than the others that in many of 
their reminiscences she has no share; yet 
she has her own stories, too. A friend of 
our father's, being much impressed with this 
starry beauty of the child, thought it would 
be pleasant to give her the prettiest doll that 
could be found; accordingly he appeared one 
day bringing a wonderful creature, with hair 
almost like Maud's own, and great blue eyes 
that opened and shut, and cheeks whose 
steadfast roses did not flash in and out, but 
bloomed always. I think the doll was 
dressed in blue and silver, but am not sure ; 
she was certainly very magnificent. 

Maud was enchanted, of course, and 
hugged her treasure, and went off with it. 

3 



y 

34 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

It happened that she had been taken only 
the day before to see the bhnd children at 
the Institution near by, where our father 
spent much of his time. It was the first 
time she had talked with the little blind 
girls, and they made a deep impression on 
her baby mind, though she said little at the 
time. As I said, she went off with her new 
doll, and no one saw her for some time. At 
length she returned, flushed and triumphant. 

" My dolly is blind, now! " she cried ; and 
she displayed the doll, over whose eyes she 
had tied a ribbon, in imitation of Laura 
Bridgman. " She is blind Polly ! ain't got 
no eyes 't all ! " 

Alas ! it was even so. Maud had poked 
the beautiful blue glass eyes till they fell 
in, and only empty sockets were hidden by 
the green ribbon. There was a great out- 
cry, of course ; but it did not disturb Maud 
in the least. She wanted a blind doll, and 
she had one ; and no pet could be more 
carefully tended than was poor blind Polly. 

More precious than any doll could be, 
rises in my memory the majestic form of 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. 35 

Pistachio. It was Flossy, ever fertile in 
invention, who discovered the true worth of 
Pistachio, and taught us to regard with awe 
and reverence this object of her affection. 
Pistachio was an oval mahogany footstool, 
covered with green cloth of the color of the 
nut whose name he bore. I have the im- 
pression that he had lost a leg, but am not 
positive on this point. He was considered 
an invalid, and every morning he was put 
in the baby-carriage and taken in solemn 
procession down to the brook for his morn- 
ing bath. One child held a parasol over his 
sacred head (only he had no head!), two 
more propelled the carnage, while the other 
two went before as outriders. No mirth was 
allowed on this occasion, the solemnity of 
which was deeply impressed on us. Arrived 
at the brook, Pistachio was lifted from the 
carriage by his chief officer. Flossy herself, 
and set carefully down on the flat stone 
beside the brook. His sacred legs were 
dipped one by one into the clear water, and 
dried with a towel. Happy was the child 
who was allowed to perform this function ! 



36 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

After the bath, he was walked gently up 
and down, and rubbed, to assist the circula- 
tion ; then he was put back in his carriage, 
and the procession started for home again, 
with the same gravity and decorum as be- 
fore. The younger children felt sure there 
was some mystery about Pistachio. I can- 
not feel sure, even now, that he was notlv 
ing more than an ordinary oval cricket ; 
but his secret, whatever it was, has perished 
with him. 

I perceive that I have said little or noth- 
ing thus far about Harry ; yet he was a very 
important member of the family. The only 
boy: and such a boy! He was by nature a 
Very Imp, such as has been described by 
Mr. Stockton in one of his delightful stories. 
Not two years old was he when he began to 
pull the tails of all the little dogs he met, — 
a habit which he long maintained. The 
love of mischief was deeply rooted in him. 
It was not safe to put him in the closet for 
misbehavior ; for he cut off the pockets of 
the dresses hanging there, and snipped the 
fringe off his teacher's best shawl. Yet he 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. n 

was a sweet and affectionate child, with a 
tender heart and sensitive withal. When 
about four years old, he had the habit of 
summoning our father to breakfast ; and, 
not being able to say the word, would an- 
nounce, " Brescott is ready ! " This excited 
mirth among the other children, which he 
never could endure ; accordingly, one morn- 
ing he appeared at the door of the dressing- 
room and said solemnly, " Papa, your food is 
prepared ! " 

It is Recorded of this child that he went 
once to pay a visit to some dear relatives, 
and kept them in a fever of anxiety until he 
was taken home again. One day it was his 
little cousin's rocking-horse, which disap- 
peared from the nursery, and shortly after 
was seen airing itself on the top of the chim- 
ney, kicking its heels in the sunshine, and 
appearing to enjoy its outing. Another time 
it was down the chimney that the stream of 
mischief took its way ; and a dear and ven- 
erable visitor (no other than Dr. Coggeshall, 
of Astor Library fame), sitting before the fire 
in the twilight, was amazed by a sudden 



38 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

shower of boots tumbling down, one after 
another, into the ashes, whence he consci- 
entiously rescued them with the tongs, at 
peril of receiving some on his good white 
head. 

Such boots and shoes as escaped this fiery 
ordeal were tacked by Master Harry to the 
floor of the closets in the various rooms ; 
and while he was in the closet, what could 
be easier or pleasanter than to cut off the 
pockets of the dresses hanging there ? Alto- 
gether, Egypt was glad when Harry departed; 
and I do not think he made many more visits 
away from home, till he had outgrown the 
days of childhood. 

At the age of six, Harry determined to 
marry, and offered his hand and heart to 
Mary, the nurse, an excellent woman some 
thirty years older than he. He sternly for- 
bade her to sew or do other nursery work, 
saying that his wife must not work for her 
living. .About this time, too, he told our 
mother that he thought he felt his beard 
growing. 

He was just two years older than Laura, 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. 39 

and the tie between them was very close. 
Laura's first question to a stranger was 
always, " Does you know my bulla Hally ? 
I hope you does ! " and she was truly sorry 
for any one who had not that privilege. 

The two children slept in tiny rooms ad- 
joining each other. It was both easy and 
pleasant to " talk across " while lying in bed, 
when they were supposed to be sound asleep. 
Neither liked to give up the last word of 
greeting, and they would sometimes say 
" Good-night ! " " Good-night ! " over and over, 
backward and forward, for ten minutes 
together. In general, Harry was very kind 
to Laura, playing with her, and protecting 
her from any roughness of neighbor children. 
(They said "bunnit" and " apurn," and "I 
wunt ; " and we were fond of correcting them, 
which they not brooking, quarrels were apt 
to ensue.) But truth compels me to tell of 
one occasion on which Harry did not show 
a brotherly spirit. In the garden, under a 
great birch-tree, stood a trough for watering 
the horses. It was a large and deep trough, 
and always full of beautiful, clear water. It 



40 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

was pleasant to lean over the edge, and see 
the sky and the leaves of the tree reflected 
as if in a crystal mirror ; to see one's own 
rosy, freckled face, too, and make other 
faces ; to see which could open eyes or 
mouth widest. 

Now one day, as little Laura, being per- 
haps four years old, was hanging over the 
ed2:e of the trousrh, fors^etful of all save the 
delight of gazing, it chanced that Harry 
came up behind her; and the spirit of mis- 
cliicf that was always in him triuniphed over 
brotherly affection, and he 

" Ups with her heels. 
And smothers lier squeals " 

in the clear, cold water. 

Laura came up gasping and pufifing, her 
hair streaming all over her round face, her 
eyes staring with wonder and fright ! 

By the time help arrived, as it fortunately 
did, in the person of Thomas the gardener, 
poor Laura was in a deplorable condition, 
half choked with water, and frightened nearly 
out of her wits. 

Thomas carried the dripping child to the 



MORE ABOUT OURSELVES. 4 1 

house and put her into Mary's kind arms, 
and then reported to our mother what Harry 
had done. 

We were almost never whipped ; but for 
this misdeed Harry was put to bed at once, 
and our mother, sitting beside him, gave 
him what we used to call a " talking to," 
which he did not soon forget. 

Nurse Mary probably thought it would 
gratify Laura to know that naughty Harry 
was being punished for his misdoings ; but 
she had mistaken her child. When the 
mother came back to the nursery from 
Harrys room, she found Laura (in dry 
raiment, but with cheeks still crimson and 
shining) sitting in the middle of the floor, 
with clenched fists and flashing eyes, and 
roaring at the top of her lungs, " I '11 tumble 
my mudder down wid a 'tick ! " 



CHAPTER III. 



GREEN PEACE. 



Not many children can boast of having two 
homes ; some, alas ! have hardly one. But 
we actually had two abiding-places, both of 
which were so dear to us that we loved them 
equally. First, there was Green Peace. 
When our mother first came to the place, 
and saw the fair orarden, and the house with 
its lawn and its shadowing trees, she gave it 
this name, half in sport; and the title clung 
to it always. 

The house itself was pleasant. The origi- 
nal building, nearly two hundred years old, 
was low and squat, with low-studded rooms, 
and great posts in the corners, and small 
many-paned windows. As I recall it now, it 
consisted largely of cupboards, — the queerest 
cupboards that ever were ; some square and 
some three-cornered, and others of no shape 




Maud. 



GREEN PEACE. 45 

at all. They were squeezed into staircase 
walls, they lurked beside chimneys, they were 
down near the floor, they were close beneath 
the ceiling. It was as if a child had built 
the house for the express purpose of playing 
hide-and-seek in it. Ah, how we children 
did play hide-and-seek there ! To lie curled 
up in the darkest corner of the "twisty" 
cupboard, that went burrowing in under the 
front stairs, — to lie curled up there, eating 
an apple, and hear the chase go clattering 
and thumping by, that was a sensation ! 

Then the stairs ! There was not very 
much of them, for a tall man standing on 
the ground floor could touch the top step 
with his hand. But they had a great deal of 
variety ; no two steps went the same way : 
they seemed to have fallen out with one an- 
other, and never to have '' made up " again. 
When you had once learned how to go up 
and down, it was very well, except in the 
dark; and even then you had only to remem- 
ber that you must tread on the farther side 
of the first two steps, and on the hither side 
of the next three, and in the middle of four 



46 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

after, and then you were near the top or the 
bottom, as the case might be, and could 
scramble or jump for it. But it was not well 
for strangers to go up and down those stairs. 
There was another flight that was even 
more perilous, but our father had it boarded 
over, as he thought it unsafe for any one to 
use. One always had a shiver in passing 
through a certain dark passage, when one 
felt boards instead of plaster under one's 
hand, and knew that behind those boards 
lurked the hidden staircase. There was 
something uncanny about it, — 

" O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted." 

Perhaps the legend of the hidden staircase 
was all the more awful because it was never 
told. 

Just to the right of the school-room, a 
door opened into the new part of the house 
which our father had built. The first room 
was the great dining-room ; and very great it 
was. On the floor was a wonderful carpet, 
all in one piece, which was made in France, 



GREEN PEACE. 47 

and had belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, a 
brother of the great Emperor. In the mid- 
dle was a medallion of Napoleon and Marie 
Louise, with sun-rays about them ; then came 
a great circle, with strange beasts on it ramp- 
ing and roaring (only they roared silently) ; 
and then a plain space, and in the corners 
birds and fishes such as never were seen in 
air or sea. Yes, that was a carpet ! It was 
here we danced the wonderful dances. We 
hopped round and round the circle, and we 
stamped on the beasts and the fishes ; but it 
was not good manners to step on the Em- 
peror and Empress, — one must go round 
them. Here our mother sang to us; but 
the singing belongs to another chapter. 

The sreat dinins^-room had a roof all to 
itself, — a flat roof, covered with tar and 
gravel, and railed in ; so that one could lie 
on one's face and kick one's heels, pick out 
white pebbles, and punch the bubbles of tar 
all hot in the sun. 

But, after all, we did not stay in the house 
much. Why should we, with the garden 
calling: us out with its thousand voices .? On 



48 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

eacli side of the house lay an oval lawn, 
green as emerald. One lawn had the labur- 
num-tree, where at the right time of year 
we sat under a shower of fragrant gold ; the 
other had the three hawthorn-trees, one with 
white blossoms, another with pink, and a 
third with deep red, rose-like flowers. Other 
trees were there, but I do not remember 
them. Directly in front of the house stood 
two giant Balm-of-Gilead trees, towering over 
the low-roofed dwelling. These trees were 
favorites of ours, for at a certain time they 
dropped down to us thousands and thousands 
of sticky catkins, full of the most charming, 
silky cotton. We called them the "cotton- 
wool-trees," and loved them tenderly. Then, 
between the trees, a flight of steps plunged 
down to the green-house. A curious place 
this was, — summer-house, hot-house, and 
bowling-alley, all in one. The summer-house 
part was not very interesting, being all filled 
with seeds and pots and dry bulbs, and the 
like. But from it a swing-door opened into 
Elysium ! Here the air was soft and balmy, 
and full of the smell of roses. One went 



GREEN PEACE. 49 

down two steps, and there were the roses 
themselves ! Great vines trained along the 
walls, heavy with long white or yellow or tea- 
colored buds, — I remember no red ones. Mr. 
Arrow, the gardener, never let us touch the 
roses, and he never gave us a bud ; but when 
a rose was fully open, showing its golden 
heart, he would often pick it for us, with a 
sigh, but a kind look too. Mr. Arrow was 
an Englishman, stout and red-faced. Julia 
made a rhyme about him once, beginning, — 

" Poor Mr. Arrow, he once was narrow, 
But that was a long time ago." 

Midway in the long glass-covered building 
was a tiny oval pond, lined with green moss. 
I think it once had goldfish in it, iDut they 
did not thrive. When Mr. Arrow was gone 
to dinner, it was pleasant to fill the brass 
syringe with water from this pond, and squirt 
at the roses, and feel the heavy drops plash- 
ing back in one's upturned face. Sometimes 
a child fell into the pond; but as the water 
was only four or five inches deep, no harm 
was done, save to stockings and petticoats. 

4 



50 IV HEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

The bowling-alley was divided by a low 
partition from the hot-house, so that when 
we went to play at planets we breathed the 
same soft, perfumed air. The planets were 
the balls. The biggest one was Uranus ; 
then came Saturn, and so on down to Mer- 
cury, a little dot of a ball. They were of 
some dark, hard, foreign wood, very smooth, 
with a dusky polish. It was a great delight 
to roll them, either over the smooth floor, 
against the ninepins, or along the rack at the 
side. When one rolled Uranus or Jupiter, 
it sounded like thunder, — Olympian thun- 
der, suggestive of angry gods. Then the 
musical tinkle of the pins, as they clinked 
and fell together ! Sometimes they were 
British soldiers, and we the Continentals, 
firing the " iron six-pounder " from the other 
end of the battle-field. Sometimes, regard- 
less of dates, we introduced artillery into the 
Trojan war, and Hector bowled Achilles off 
his legs, or vice versa. 

The bowling-alley was also used for other 
sports. It was here that Flossy gave a grand 
party for Cotchy, her precious Maltese cat. 



GREEN PEACE. 51 

All the cat-owning little girls in the neigh- 
borhood were invited, and about twelve came, 
each bringing her pet in a basket. Cotchy 
was beautifully dressed in a cherry-colored 
ribbon, which set off her gray, satiny coat to 
perfection. She received her guests with 
much dignity, but was not inclined to do 
much toward entertaining them. Flossy tried 
to make the twelve cats play with one an- 
other, but they were shy on first acquaint- 
ance, and a little stiff. Perhaps Flossy did 
not in thos.^ days know the proper etiquette 
for introducing cats, though since then she 
has studied all kinds of etiquette thoroughl)'. 
But the little girls enjoyed themselves, if 
the cats did not, and there was a o^reat deal 
of chattering and comparing notes. Then 
came the feast, which consisted of milk and 
fish-bones ; and next every cat had her nose 
buttered by way of dessert Altogether, the 
party was voted a great success. 

Below, and on both sides of the ereen- 
house, the fertile ground was set thick with 
fruit-trees, our father's special pride. The 
pears and peaches of Green Peace were 



52 WHEN J WAS YOUR AGE. 

known far and wide ; I have never seen 
such peaches since, nor is it only the halo of 
childish recollection that shines around them, 
for others bear the same testimony. Crim- 
son-glowing, golden-hearted, smooth and per- 
fect as a baby's cheek, each one was a thing 
of wonder and beauty ; and when you ate 
one, you ate summer and sunshine. Our 
father gave us a great deal of fruit, but we 
were never allowed to take it ourselves with- 
out permission ; indeed, I doubt if it ever 
occurred to us to do so. One of us still re- 
members the thrill of horror she felt when a 
little girl who had come to spend the after- 
noon picked up a fallen peach and ate it, 
without asking leave. It seemed a dreadful 
thing not to know that the garden was a 
field of honor. As to the proverbial sweet- 
ness of stolen fruit, we knew nothing about 
it. The fruit was sweet enough from our 
dear father's hand, and, as I said, he gave us 
plenty of it. 

How was it, I wonder, that this sense of 
honor seemed sometimes to stay in the gar- 
den and not always to come into the house } 







Laura was found in the Sugar-Barrel. 



GREEN PEACE. 55 

For as I write, the thought comes to rne of 
a day when Laura was found with her feet 
sticking out of the sua^ar-barrel, into which 
she had fallen head foremost while trying to 
get a lump of sugar. She has never eaten a 
lump of sugar, save in her tea, since that day. 
Also, it is recorded of Flossy and Julia, that, 
being one day at the Institution, they found 
the store-room open, and went in, against the 
law. There was a beautiful polished tank, 
which appeared to be full of rich brown 
syrup. Julia and Flossy liked syrup; so 
each filled a mug, and then they counted 
one, two, three, and each took a good draught, 
— and it was train-oil! 

But in both these cases the culprits were 
hardly out of babyhood ; so perhaps they had 
not yet learned about the " broad stone of 
honor," on which it is good to set one's feet. 

I must not leave the garden without speak- 
ing of the cherry-trees. These must have 
been planted by early settlers, perhaps by the 
same hand that planned the crooked stairs 
and quaint cupboards of the old house, — 
enormous trees, gnarled and twisted like 



56 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

ancient apple-trees, and as sturdy as they. 
They had been grafted — whether by our 
father s or some earher hand I know not — 
with the finest varieties of " white-hearts " 
and " black-hearts," and they bore amazing 
quantities of cherries. These attracted 
fiocks of birds, which our father in vain tried 
to frighten away with scarecrows. Once he 
put the cat in a bird-cage, and hung her up 
in the white-heart tree; but the birds soon 
found that she could not 2:et at them, and 
poor pussy was so miserable that she was 
quickly released. 

I perceive that we shall not get to the 
summer h.ome in this chapter; but I must 
say a word about the Institution for the 
Blind, which was within^ a few minutes" walk 
of Green Peace. 

Many of our happiest hours were spent in 
this pleasant j^lace, the home of patient cheer- 
fulness and earnest work. We often went 
to play with the blind children when our 
lessons and theirs were over, and they came 
trooping out into the sunn\- playground. I 
do not think it occurred to us to pity these 



GREEN PEACE. 57 

boys and girls deprived of one of the chief 
sources of pleasure in life ; they were so 
happy, so merry, that we took their blindness 
as a matter of course. 

Our father often gave us baskets of fruit 
to take to them. That was a great pleasure. 
We loved to turn the great globe in the hall, 
and, shutting our eyes, pass our fingers over 
the raised surfaces, trying to find different 
places. We often " played blind," and tried 
to read the great books with raised print, 
but never succeeded that I remember. The 
printing-office was a w^onderful place to lin- 
ger in; and one could often get pieces of 
marbled paper, which was valuable in the 
paper-doll world. Then there was the gym- 
nasium, with its hanging rings, and its won- 
derful tilt, which went up so high that it took 
one's breath away. Just beyond the gymna- 
sium were some small rooms, in which were 
stored worn-out pianos, disabled after years 
of service under practising fingers. It was 
very good fun to play on a worn-out piano. 
There were always a good many notes that 
really sounded, and they had quite individual 



58 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

sounds, not like those of common pianos ; 
then there were some notes that buzzed, and 
some that growled, and some that made no 
noise at all ; and one could poke in under 
the cover, and twang the strings, and play 
with the chamois-leather things that went 
flop (we have since learned that they are 
called hammers), and sometimes pull them 
out, though that seemed wicked. 

Then there was the matron's room, where 
we were always made welcome by the sweet 
and gracious woman who still makes sun- 
shine in that place by her lovely presence. 

Dear Miss M was never out of patience 

with our pranks, had always a picture-book 
or a flower or a curiosity to show us, and 
often a story to tell when a spare half-hour 
came. For her did Flossy and Julia act their 
most thrilling tragedies, no other spectators 
being admitted. To her did Harry and Laura 
confide their infant joys and woes. Other 
friends will have a chapter to themselves, but 
it seems most fitting to speak of this friend 
here, in telling of the home she has made 
bright for over fifty years. 



GREEN PEACE. 59 

Over the way from the Institution stood 
the workshop, where bUnd men and women, 
many of them graduates of the Institution, 
made mattresses and pillows, mats and 
brooms. This was another favorite haunt 
of ours. There was a stuffy but not un- 
pleasant smell of feathers and hemp about 
the place. I should know that smell if I met 
it in Siberia! There were coils of rope, 
sometimes so large that one could squat 
down and hide in the middle, piles of hemp, 
and dark mysterious bins full of curled 
hair, white and black. There was a dread- 
ful mystery about the black-hair bin ; the lit- 
tle ones ran past it, with their heads turned 
away. But they never told what it was, and 
one of them never knew. 

But the crowning joy of the workshop was 
the feather-room, — a long room, with smooth, 
clean floor; along one side of it were divi- 
sions, like the stalls in a stable, and each di- 
vision was half filled with feathers. Boy and 
girl readers will understand what a joy this 
must have been, — to sit down in the feath- 
ers, and let them cover you up to the neck. 



6o WHEN I WAS YOL'R AGE. 

and be a setting lien ! or to lie at full length, 
and be a traveller lost in the snow, — Harry 
making it snow feathers till you were all 
covered up, and then turning into the faith- 
ful hound and dragging you out ! or to jjlay 
the oame of " Winds," and blow the feathers 
about the room ! But old Margaret did not 
allow this last game, and we could do it only 
when she happened to go out for a moment, 
which was not very often. Old Margaret 
was the presiding genius of the feather-room, 
a half-blind woman, who kept the feathers in 
order and helped to sew up the pillows and 
mattresses. She was always kind to us, and 
let us rake feathers with the great wooden 
rake as much as we would. Later, when 
Laura was perhaps ten years old, she used to 
go and read to old Margaret. Mrs. Brown- 
ing's poems were making a new world for 
the child at that time, and she never felt a 
moment's doubt about the old woman's en. 
joying them : in after years doubts did occur 
to her. 

It was probably a quaint picture, if any 
one had looked in upon it: the long, low 



GREEN PEACE. 6 1 

room, with the feather-heaps, white and 
dusky gray; the half-bUnd, withered crone, 
nodding over her knitting, and the little 
earnest child, throwing her whole soul into 
"The Romauntof the Page," or the " Rhyme 
of the Duchess May." 

" Oh ! the little birds sang east, 
And the little birds sang west. 
Toll slowly ! " 

The first sound of the words carries me 
back through the years to the feather-room 
and old blind Margaret. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE VALLEY. 



The time of our summer flitting varied. 
Sometimes we stayed at Green Peace till 
after strawberry-time, and lingered late at 
the Valley ; sometimes we went early, and 
came back in time for the peaches. But in 
one month or another there came a season 
of great business and bustle. Woollen dresses 
were put away in the great cedar-lined cam- 
phor-chests studded with brass nails ; calico 
dresses were lengthened, and joyfully as- 
sumed ; trunks were packed, and boxes and 
barrels ; carpets were taken up and laid away; 
and white covers were put over pictures and 
mirrors. Finally we departed, generally in 
more or less confusion. 

I remember one occasion when our rear 
column reached the Old Colony Station just 
as the train was starting. The advance- 



THE VALLEY. 63 

guard, consisting of our mother and the 
older children, was already on board ; and 
Harry and Laura have a vivid recollection 
of being caught up by our father and tum- 
bled into the moving baggage-car, he flash- 
ing in after us, and all sitting on trunks, 
pa'nting, till we were sufficiently revived to 
pass through to our seats in the passenger- 
car. In those days the railway ran no 
farther than Fall River. There we must 
take a carriage and drive twelve miles to 
our home in the Island of Rest. Twelve 
long and weary miles they were, much 
dreaded by us all. The trip was made in 
a large old-fashioned vehicle, half hack, half 
stao-e. The red cushions were hard and un- 
comfortable ; the horses were aged; their 
driver, good, snutf-colored Mr. Anthony, felt 
keenly his duty to spare them, and considered 
the passengers a minor affair. So we five 
children were cramped and cooped up, I 
know not how long. It seemed hours that 
we must sit there, while the ancient horses 
crawled up the sandy hills, or jogged medita- 
tively along the level spaces. Every joint 



64 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

developed a separate ache ; our legs were 
cramped, — the short ones from hanging 
over the seat, the long ones because the 
floor of the coach was piled with baskets 
and bandboxes. It was hot, hot ! The flies 
buzzed, and would not let one go to sleep ; 
the dust rolled in thick yellow clouds from 
under the wheels, and filled eyes and mouth, 
and set all a-sneezing. Decidedly, it was a 
most tiresome jaunt. But all the more de- 
lightful was the arrival ! To drive in under 
the apple-trees, just as the evening was fall- 
ing cool and sweet; to tumble out of the 
stuffy prison-coach, and race through the 
orchard, and out to the barn, and up the 
hill behind the house, — ah, that was worth 
all the miseries of the journey ! 

From the hill behind the house we could 
see the sunset ; and that was one thing we 
did not have at Green Peace, shut in by its 
great trees. Here, before our eyes, still ach- 
ing from the dust of the road, lay the great 
bay, all a sheet of silver, with white sails here 
and there ; beyond it Conanicut, a long island, 
brown in the noon-light, now softened into 



THE VALLEY. 65 

wonderful shades of amethyst and violet; 
and the great sun going down in a glory of 
gold and flame! Nowhere else are such sun- 
sets. Sometimes the sky was all strewn with 
fiery flakes and long delicate flame-feathers, 
o-lowing with rosy light; sometimes there 
were purple cloud-islands, edged with crim- 
son, and between them and the real island a 
space of delicate green, so pure, so cold, that 
there is nothing to compare with it save a 
certain chrysoprase our mother had. 

Gazing at these wonders, the children 
would stand, full of vague delight, not know- 
ing what they thought, till the tea-bell sum- 
moned them to the house for a merry picnic 
supper. Then there was clattering upstairs, 
washing of hands in the great basin with pur- 
ple grapes on it (it belonged in the guest- 
chamber, and we were not allowed to use it 
save on special occasions like this), hasty 
smoothing of hair and straightening of col- 
lars, and then clatter ! clatter ! down again. 

There was nothing remarkable about the 
house at the Valley. It was just a pleasant 
cottage, with plenty of sunny windows and 

5 



66 U'HEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

square, comfortable rooms But we were 
seldom in the house, save at meal-times or 
when it rained; and our real home was under 
the blue sky. First, there was the orchard. 
It was an ideal orchard, with the queerest 
old apple-trees that ever were seen. They did 
not bear many apples, but they were delight- 
ful to climb in, with trunks slanting so that 
one could easily run up them, and branches 
that curled round so as to make a comfort- 
able back to lean against. There are few 
pleasanter things than to sit in an apple-tree 
and read poetry, with birds twittering undis- 
mayed beside you, and green leaves whisper- 
ing over your head. Laura was generally 
doing this when she ought to have been 
mending her stockings. 

Then there was the joggling-board, under 
the two biggest trees. The delight of a 
joggling-board is hardly to be explained 
to children who have never known it ; but 
I trust many children do know it. The 
board is long and smooth and springy, sup- 
ported at both ends on stands ; and one can 
play all sorts of things on it. Many a circus 



THE VALLEY. 67 

has been held on the board at the Valley! 
We danced the tight-rope on it ; we leaped 
through imaginary rings, coming down on 
the tips of our toes ; we hopped its whole 
length on one foot ; we wriggled along it on 
our stomachs, on our backs ; we bumped 
along it on hands and knees. Dear old jog- 
gling-board! it is not probable that any other 
was ever quite so good as ours. 

Near by was the pump, a never-failing 
wonder to us when we were little. The well 
over which it stood was very deep, and it 
took a long time to bring the bucket up. 
It was a chain-pump, and the chain went 
rattlety-clank ! rattlety-clank ! round and 
round ; and the handle creaked and groaned, 
— " Ah-ho/ 2i\\-ko/ " When you had turned 
a good while there came out of the spout a 
stream of — -water? No! of daddy-long- 
legses ! They lived, apparently, in the 
spout, and they did not like the water; so 
when they heard the bucket coming up, with 
the water going "lip! lap!" as it swung to 
and fro, they came running out, dozens and 
dozens of them, probably thinking what 



68 IVHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

unreasonable people we were to disturb 
them. When the water did finally come, it 
was wonderfully cold, and clear as crystal. 

The hill behind the house was perhaps 
our favorite pla^-room. It was a low, rocky 
hill, covered with "prostrate juniper" 
bushes, which bore blue berries very useful 
in our housekeeping. At the top of the rise 
the bare rock cropped out, dark gray, cov- 
ered with flat, dry lichens. This was our 
house. It had several rooms : the drawing- 
room was really palatial, — a broad floor of 
rock, with flights of steps leading up to it. 
The state stairway was used for kings and 
queens, conquerors, and the like; the smaller 
was really more convenient, as the steps were 
more sharply defined, and you were not so 
apt to fall down them. Then there was the 
dining-room rock, where meals were served, 
— daisy pudding and similar delicacies ; and 
the kitchen rock, which had a real oven, and 
the most charming cupboards imaginable. 
Here were stored hollyhock cheeses, and sor- 
rel leaves, and twigs of black birch, fragrant 
and spicy, and many other good things. 



THE VALLEY. 69 

On this hill was celebrated, on the first of 
August, the annual festival of " Yeller's Day." 
This custom was begun by Flossy, and ad- 
hered to for many years. Immediately after 
breakfast on the appointed day, all the chil- 
dren assembled on the top of the hill and 
yelled. Oh, how we yelled! It was a 
point of honor to make as much noise as 
possible. We roared and shrieked and 
howled, till we were too hoarse to make a 
sound ; then we rested, and played something 
else, perhaps, till our voices were restored, 
and then — yelled again ! Yeller's Day was 
regarded as one of the great days of the 
summer. By afternoon we were generally 
quite exhausted, and we were hoarse for sev- 
eral days afterward. I cannot recommend 
this practice. In fact, I sincerely hope that 
no child will attempt to introduce it ; for it 
is very bad for the voice, and might in some 
cases do real injury. 

Almost every morning we went down to 
the bay to bathe. It was a walk of nearly a 
mile through the fields, — such a pleasant 
walk! The fields were not green, but of a 



yo WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

soft russet, the grass being thin and dry, 
with great quantities of a Httle pinkish fuzzy 
plant whose name we never knew.' They 
were divided by stone walls, which we were 
skilful in climbing. In some places there 
were -bars which must be let down, or climbed 
over, or crawled through, as fancy suggested. 
There were many blackberries, of the low- 
bush variety, bearing great clusters of berries, 
glossy, beautiful, delicious. We were not 
allowed to eat them on the way down, but 
only when coming home. Some of these 
fields belonged to the Cross Farmer, who 
had once been rude to us. We regarded 
him as a manner of devil, and were always 
looking round to see if his round-shouldered, 
blue-shirted figure were in sight. At last the 
shore was reached, and soon we were all in 
the clear water, shrieking with delight, pad- 
dling about, puffing and blowing like a school 
of young porpoises. 

At high-tide the beach was pebbled ; at 
low-tide we went far out, the ground sloping 
very gradually, to a delightful place where 

1 I find it to be stone clover. 



THE VALLEY. J I 

the bottom was of fine white sand, sparkling 
as if mixed with diamond dust. Starfish 
crawled about on it, and other creatures, — 
crabs, too, sometimes, that would nip an un- 
wary toe if they got a chance. Sometimes 
the water was full of jelly-fish, which we did 
not like, in spite of their beauty. Beyond 
the white sand was a bed of eel-grass, very 
dreadful, not to be approached. If a person 
went into it, he was instantly seized and en- 
tangled, and drowned before the eyes of his 
companions. This was our firm belief. It 
was probably partly due to Andersen's story 
of the " Little Sea-Maid," which had made a 
deep impression on us all, with its clutching 
polyps and other submarine terrors. 

We all learned to swim more or less, but 
Flossy was the best swimmer. 

Sometimes we went to bathe in the after- 
noon instead of the morning, if the tide 
suited better. I remember one such time 
when we came delightfully near having an 
adventure. It was full moon, and the tide 
was very high. We had loitered along the 
beach after our bath, gathering mussels to 



72 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

boil for tea, picking up gold-shells or scallop- 
shells, and punching seaweed bladders, which 
pop charmingly if you do them right. 

German Mary, the good, stupid nurse who 
was supposed to be taking care of us, knew 
nothing about tides ; and when we came 
back to the little creek which we must cross 
on leaving the beach, lo ! the creek was a 
deep, broad stream, the like of which we 
had never seen. What was to be done ? 
Valiant Flossy proposed to swini across and 
get help, but Mary shrieked and would not 
hear of it, and we all protested that it was 
impossible. Then we perceived that we 
must spend the night on the beach ; and 
when we were once accustomed to the idea, 
it was not without attraction for us. The 
sand was warm and dry, and full of shells 
and pleasant things ; it was August, and the 
night would be just cool enough for comfort 
after the hot day ; we had a pailful of black- 
berries which we had picked on the way 
down, meaning to eat them during our 
homeward walk ; Julia could tell us stories. 
Altogether it would be a very pleasant occa- 



THE VALLEY. 73 

sion. And then to think of the romance of 
it! "The Deserted Children!" "Alone on 
a Sandbank! " " The Watchers of the Tide!" 
There was no end to the things that could 
be made out of it. So, though poor Mary 
wept and wrung her hands, mindful (which 
I cannot remember that we were) of our 
mother waiting for us at home, we were all 
very happy. 

The sun went down in orolden state. 
Then, turning to the land, we watched the 
moon rising, in softer radiance, but no less 
wonderful and glorious. Slowly the great 
orb rose, turning from pale gold to purest 
silver. The sea darkened, and presently a 
little wind came up, and began to sing with 
the murmuring waves. We sang, too, some 
of the old German student-songs which our 
mother had taught us, and which were our fa- 
vorite ditties. They rang out merrily over 
the water : — 

Die Binschgauer wollten wallfahrten gek'n! 
(The Binschgauer would on a pilgrimage go !) 

or, — 

Was komj)it dort von der Hoh'f 
(Wliat comes there over the hill ?) 



74 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

Then Julia told us a story. Perhaps it 
was the wonderful story of Red-cap, — a boy 
who met a giant in the forest, and did some- 
thing to help him, I cannot remember what. 
Whereupon the grateful giant gave Red-cap 
a covered silver dish, with a hunter and a 
hare engraved upon it. When the boy 
wanted anything he must put the cover on, 
and ask the hunter and hare to give him 
what he desired ; but there must be a rhyme 
in the request, else it could not be granted. 
Red-cap thanked the giant, and as soon as 
he was alone put the cover on the dish and 
said, — 

" Silver hunter, silver hare, 
Give me a ripe and juicy pear ! " 

Taking off the cover, he found the finest 
pear that ever was seen, shining like pure 
gold, with a crimson patch on one side. It 
was so delicious that it made Red-cap hun- 
gry ; so he covered the dish- again and said : 

"Silver luint.r, silver rabbit, 
Give me an apple, and I '11 grab it ! " 

Off came the cover, and, lo ! there was an 
apple the very smell of which was too good 



THE VALLEY. 75 

for any one save the truly virtuous. It was 
so large that it filled the dish, and its flavor 
was not to be described, so wonderful was it ! 
A third time the happy Red-cap covered his 
dish, and cried, — 

" Hunter and hare, of silver each, 
Give me a soft and velvet peach ! " 

And when he saw the peach he cried out for 
joy, for it was like the peaches that grew on 
the crooked tree just by the south door of 
the greenhouse at Green Peace ; and those 
were the best trees in the garden, and there- 
fore the best in the world. 

The trouble about this story is that I 
never can remember any more of it, and I 
cannot find the book that contains it. But 
it must have been about this time that we 
were hailed from the opposite side of the 
creek; and presently a boat was run out, and 
came over to the sand beach and took us off. 
The people at the Poor Farm, which was on 
a hill close by, had seen the group of Crusoes 
and come to our rescue. They greeted us 
with words of pity (which were quite un- 
necessary), rowed us to the shore, and then 



76 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

kindly harnessed the farm-horse and drove 
us home. German Mary was loud in her 
thanks and expressions of relief ; our mother 
also was grateful to the good people ; but from 
us they received scant and grudging thanks. 
If they had only minded their own business 
and let us alone, we could have spent the 
night on a sandbank. Now it was not likely 
that we ever should ! And, indeed, we never 
did. 



CHAPTER V. 

OUR FATHER. 

(the late dr. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE.) 

There is so much to tell about our father 
that I hardly know where to begin. First, 
you must know something of his appearance. 
He was tall and very erect, with the carriage 
and walk of a soldier. His hair was black, 
with silver threads in it ; his eyes were of the 
deepest and brightest blue I ever saw. They 
were eyes full of light : to us it was the soft, 
beamino- liorht of love and tenderness, but 
sometimes to others it was the flash of a 
sword. He was very handsome ; in his 
youth he had been thought one of the 
handsomest men of his day. It was a gal- 
lant time, this youth of our father. When 
hardly more than a lad, he went out to help 
the brave Greeks who were fighting to free 



78 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

their country from the cruel yoke of the 
Turks. At an age when most young 
men were thinking how they could make 
money, and how they could best advance 
themselves in the world, our father thought 
only how he could do most good, be of most 
help to others. So he went out to Greece, 
and fought in many a battle beside the brave 
mountaineers. Dressed like them in the 
" snowy chemise and the shaggy capote," he 
shared their toils and their hardships ; slept, 
rolled in his cloak, under the open stars, or 
sat over the camp-fire, roasting wasps strung 
on a stick like dried cherries. The old 
Greek chieftains called him " the beautiful 
youth," and loved him. Once he saved the 
life of a wounded Greek, at the risk of his 
own, as you shall read by and by in Whittiers 
beautiful words ; and the rescued man fol- 
lowed him afterward like a dog, not wishing 
to lose sight of him for an hour, and would 
even slee]D at his feet at night. 

Our father's letters and journals give vivid 
pictures of the wild life among the rugged 
Greek mountains. Now he describes his 




Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. 



OUR FATHER. 51 

lodo:inQ: in a villasfe, which he has reached 
late at night, in a pouring rain : — 

" Squatted down upon a sort of straw pillow 
placed on the ground, I enjoy all the luxury of a 
Grecian hut ; which in point of elegance, ease, and 
comfort, although not equal to the meanest of our 
negro huts, is nevertheless somewhat superior to 
the naked rock. We have two apartments, but no 
partitions between them, the different rooms being 
constituted by the inequality of the ground, — we 
living up the hill, while the servants and horses 
live down in the lower part ; and the smoke of our 
fires, rising to the roof and seeking in vain for 
some hole to escape, comes back again to me." 

Again, he gives a pleasant account of his 
visit to a good old Greek priest, who lived 
with his family in a tiny cottage, the best 
house in the villaoe. He found the sfood 
old man just sitting down to supper with 
his wife and children, and was invited most 
cordially to join them. The supper con- 
sisted of a huge beet, boiled, and served with 
butter and black bread. This was enough 
for the whole family, and the guest too ; and 
after describing the perfect contentment and 



82 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

cheerfulness which reigned in the humble 
dwellins:, our father makes some reflections 
on the different things which go to make up 
a pleasant meal, and decides that the old 
" Papa" (as a Greek priest is called) had a 
much better supper than many rich people 
he remembered at home, who feasted three 
times a day on all that money could furnish 
in the way of good cheer, and found neither 
joy nor comfort in their victuals. 

Once our father and his comrades lay 
hidden for hours in the hollow of an ancient 
wall (built thousands of years ago, perhaps 
in Homer's day), while the Turks, scimitar in 
hand, scoured the fields in search of them. 
Many years after, he showed this hollow 
to Julia and Laura, who went with him on 
his fourth journey to Greece, and told them 
the story. 

When our father saw the terrible suffer- 
ings of the Greek women and children, who 
were starving while their husbands and 
fathers were fighting for life and freedom, he 
thought that he could help best by helping 
them ; so, though I know he loved the fight- 



OUR FATHER. 83 

ino-, for he was a born soldier, he came back 
to this country, and told all that he had seen, 
and asked for money and clothes and food for 
the perishing wives and mothers and children. 
He told the story well, and put his whole 
heart into it ; and people listen to a story so 
told. Many hearts beat in answer to his, 
and in a short time he sailed for Greece 
ao-ain, with a ffood ship full of rice and 
flour, and cloth to make into garments, and 
money to buy whatever else might be needed. 
When he landed in Greece, the women 
came flocking about him by thousands, cry- 
ing for bread, and praying God to bless him. 
He felt blessed enough when he saw the chil- 
dren eating bread, and saw the naked backs 
covered, and the sad, hungry faces smiling 
ao-ain. So he went about doing good, and 
helping whenever he saw need. Perhaps 
many a poor woman may have thought 
that the beautiful youth was almost like an 
angel sent by God to relieve her; and she 
may not have been far wrong. 

When the war was over, and Greece was 
a free country, our father came home, and 



84 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

looked about him again to see what he could 
do to help others. He talked with a friend 
of his, Dr. Fisher, and they decided that 
they would give their time to helping the 
blind, who needed help greatly. There were 
no schools for them in those days ; and if a 
child was blind, it must sit with folded hands 
and learn nothing. 

Our father found several blind children, 
and took them to his home and taught them. 
By and by some kind friends gave money, and 
one — Colonel Perkins — gave a fine house 
to be a school for these children and others ; 
and that was the beginning of the Perkins 
Institution for the Blind, now a great school 
where many blind boys and girls learn 
to read and study, and to play on various 
instruments, and to help themselves and 
others in the world. 

Our father always said, " Help people to 
help themselves ; don't accustom them to 
being helped by others." Another saying 
of his, perhaps his favorite one, next to the 
familiar " Let justice be done, if the heav- 
ens fall ! " was this : " Obstacles are things 



OUR FATHER. 85 

to be overcome." Indeed, this was one of 
the governing principles of his life ; and 
there were few obstacles that did not go 
down before that keen lance of his, always 
in rest and ready for a charge. 

When our father first began his work in 
philanthropy, some of his friends used to 
laush at him, and call him Don Quixote. 
Especially was this the case when he took up 
the cause of the idiotic and weak-minded, and 
vowed that instead of being condemned to 
live like animals, and be treated as such, they 
should have their rights as human beings, 
and should be taught all the more carefully 
and tenderly because their minds were weak 
and helpless. 

" What do you think Howe is going to 
do now ? " cried one gentleman to another, 
merrily. " He is going to teach the idiots, 
ha, ha, ha ! " and they both laughed heartily, 
and thought it a very good joke. But peo- 
ple soon ceased to laugh when they saw the 
helpless creatures beginning to help them- 
selves ; saw the girls learning to sew and the 
boys to work ; saw light gradually come into 



S6 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

the vacant eyes (dim and uncertain light it 
might be, but how much better than blank 
darkness !), and strength and purpose to the 
nerveless fingers. 

So the School for Feeble-minded Children 
was founded, and has been ever since a 
pleasant place, full of hope and cheer ; and 
when people found that this Don Quixote 
knew very well the difference between a 
giant and a windmill, and that he always 
brought down his giants, they soon ceased 
to laugh, and began to wonder and ad- 
mire. 

All my readers have probably heard about 
Laura Bridgman, whom he found a little 
child, deaf, dumb, and blind, knowing no 
more than an animal, and how he taught her 
to read and write, to talk with her fingers, 
and to become an earnest, thoughtful, indus- 
trious woman. It is a w^onderful story ; but 
it has already been told, and will soon be 
still more fully told, so I will not dwell upon 
it now. 

But I hope you will all read, some day, a 
Life of our father, and learn about all the 



OUR FATHER. 87 

thinors he did, for it needs a whole volume 
to tell them. 

But it is especially as our father that I 
want to describe this great and good man 
I suppose there never was a tenderer or 
kinder father. He liked to make compan- 
ions of his children, and was never weary of 
having us " tagging " at his heels. We fol- 
lowed him about the garden like so many 
little dogs, watching the pruning or grafting 
which were his special tasks. VVe followed 
him up into the wonderful pear-room, where 
were many chests of drawers, every drawer 
full of pears lying on cotton-wool. Our 
father watched their ripening with careful 
heed, and told us many things about their 
growth and habits. We learned about the 
Cure pear, which, one fancied, had been 
named for an old s^entleman with a lono: 
and waving nose ; and about the Duchesse 
d'Angouleme, which suggested, in appearance 
as in name, a splendid dame in gold and 
crimson velvet. Then there were all the 
Beurres, from the pale beauty of the Beurre 
Diel to the Beurre Bosc in its coat of rich 



88 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

russet, and the Easter Beurre, latest of all. 
There, too, was the Winter Nelis, — which 
we persisted in calling " Winter Nelly," and 
regarded as a friend of our own age, though 
this never prevented us from eating her with 
delight whenever occasion offered, — and the 
Glout Morceau, and the Doyenne d'Ete, and 
hundreds more. Julia's favorite was always 
the Bartlett, which appealed to her both by 
its beauty and its sweetness ; but Flossy 
always held, and Laura held with her, and 
does hold, and will hold till she dies, that no 
pear is to be named in the same breath with 
the Louise Bonne de Jersey. 

Oh good Louise, you admirable woman, 
for whom this green-coated ambrosia was 
named ! what a delightful person you must 
have been ! How sweetness and piquancy 
must have mingled in your adorable dispo- 
sition ! Happy was the man who called you 
his ! happy was the island of Jersey, which 
saw you and your pears ripening and mel- 
lowing side by side! 

I must not leave the pear-room without 
mentioning the beloved Strawberry Book, 



OUR FATHER. 89 

which was usually to be found there, and 
over which we children used to pore by the 
hour together. " Fruits of America " was 
its real name, but we did not care for that ; 
we loved it for its brilliant pictures of straw- 
berries and all other fruits, and perhaps even 
more for the wonderful descriptions which 
were really as satisfying as many an actual 
feast. Was it not almost as s:ood as eatins: 
a pear, to read these words about it : — 

" Skin a rich golden yellow, dappled with orange 
and crimson, smooth and delicate ; flesh smooth, 
melting, and buttery ; flavor rich, sprightly, vinous, 
and delicious ! " 

Almost as good, I say, but not quite ; and 
it is pleasant to recall that we seldom left 
the pear-room empty-handed. 

Then there was his own room, where we 
could examine the wonderful drawers of his 
great bureau, and play with the "picknickles" 
and " bucknickles." I believe our father 
invented these words. They were — well, 
all kinds of pleasant little things, — amber 
mouthpieces, and buckles and bits of enamel, 
and a wonderful Turkish pipe, and seals and 



90 WHKX 1 WAS YOUR AGE. 

wax, and some large pins two inches long 
which were srreat treasures. On his writing^- 
table were many clean pens in boxes, which 
you could lay out in patterns ; and a sand- 
box — very delightful ! We were never tired 
of pouring the fine black sand into our 
hands, where it felt so cool and smooth, and 
then back again into the box with its holes 
arranijed star-fashion. And to see him shake 
sand over his paper when he wrote a letter, 
and then pour it back in a smooth stream, 
while the written lines sparkled and seemed 
to stand up from the page! .\h, blotting- 
paper is no doubt very convenient, but I 
should like to have a sand-box, nevertheless I 
I cannot remember that our father was 
ever out of patience when we pulled his 
things about. He had many delightful 
stories, — one of " Jacky Nory," which had 
no end, and went on and on, through many 
a walk and garden prowl. Often, too, he 
would tell us of his own pranks when he 
was a little boy, — how they used to tease an 
old Portuguese sailor with a wooden leg, and 
how the old man would get very angry, and 



OUR FATHER. 9 1 

cry out, " Calabash me rompe you ! " mean- 
ing, " I '11 break your head ! " How when he 
was a student in college, and ought to have 
known better, he led the president s old horse 
upstairs and left him in an upper room of 
one of the college buildings, where the poor 
beast astonished the passers-by by putting 
his head out of the windows and neighing. 
And then our father would shake his head 
and say he was a very naughty boy, and 
Harry must never do such things. (But 
Harry did !) 

He loved to play and romp with us. Some- 
times he would put on his great fur-coat, 
and come into the dining-room at dancing- 
time, on all-fours, growling horribly, and 
pursue us into corners, we shrieking with 
delighted terror. Or he would sing for us, 
sending us into fits of laughter, for he had 
absolutely no ear for music. There was one 
tune which he was quite sure he sang cor- 
rectly, but no one could recognize it. At 
last he said, " Oh — Su-i-^^zna ! " and then we 
all knew what the tune was. " Hail to the 
Chief ! " was his favorite song, and he sang 



92 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

it with great spirit and fervor, tliough the 
air was strictly original, and very peculiar. 
When he was tired of romping or carrying 
us on his shoulder, he would say, " No ; no 
more ! I have a bone in my leg ! " which 
excuse was accepted by us little ones in per- 
fect good faith, as we thought it some mys- 
terious but painful malady. 

If our father had no ear for music, he had 
a fine one for metre, and read poetry aloud 
very beautifully. His voice was melodious 
and ringing, and we were thrilled with his 
own enthusiasm as he read to us from Scott 
or Byron, his favorite poets. I never can 
read " The Assyrian came down," without 
hearinof the rino: of his voice and seeinsf the 
i^ash of his blue eyes as he recited the splen- 
did lines. He had a great liking for Pope, 
too (as I wish more people had nowadays), 
and for Butler's " Hudibras," which he was 
constantly quoting. He commonly, when 
riding, wore but one spur, giving Hudibras's 
reason, that if one side of the horse went, 
the other must perforce go with it ; and how 
often, on some early morning walk or ride, 
have I heard him sav, — 



OUR FATHER. 93 

*' And, like a lobster boiled, the morn 
From black to red began to turn." 

Or if war or fighting were mentioned, he 
would often cry, — 

" Ay me ! what perils do environ 
The man that meddles with cold iron !" 

I must not leave the subject of reading 
without speaking of his reading of the Bible, 
which was most impressive. No one who 
ever heard him read morning prayers at the 
Institution (which he always did until his 
health failed in later years) can have forgot- 
ten the grave, melodious voice, the reverent 
tone, the majestic head bent above the sacred 
book. Nor was it less impressive when on 
Sunday afternoons he read to us, his children. 
He would have us read, too, allowing us to^ 
choose our favorite psalms or other passages. 

He was an early riser, and often shared 
our morning^ walks. Each child, as soon 
as it was old enough, was taught to ride ; 
and the rides before breakfast with him 
are things never to be forgotten. He took 
one child at a time, so that all in turn might 
have the pleasure. It seems hardly longer 



94 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

ago than yesterday, — the coming downstairs 
in the cool, dewy morning, nibbling a 
cracker for fear of hunger, springing into 
the saddle, the little black mare shaking her 
head, impatient to be off ; the canter through 
the quiet streets, where only an early milk- 
man or baker was to be seen, though on our 
return we should find them full of boys, who 
pointed the finger and shouted, — 

'• Lady on a hossback, 
Row, row, row ! '" 

then out into the pleasant country, gallop- 
ing over the smooth road, or pacing quietly 
under shady trees. Our father was a superb 
rider; indeed, he never seemed so absolutely 
at home as in the saddle. He was very par- 
ticular about our holding whip and reins in 
the right way. 

Speaking of his riding reminds me of a 
story our mother used to tell us. When 
Julia was a baby, they were travelling in 
Italy, driving in an old-fashioned travelling- 
carriage. One day they stopped at the door 
of an inn, and our father went in to make 
some inquiries. While he was gone, the 



OUR FATHER. 95 

rascally driver thought it a good opportunity 
for him to slip in at the side door to get 
a draught of wine; and, the driver gone, 
the horses saw that here was their opportu- 
nity ; so they took it, and ran away with our 
mother, the baby, and nurse in the carriage. 

Our father, hearing the sound of wheels, 
came out, caught sight of the driver's guilty 
face peering round the corner in affright, 
and at once saw what had happened. He 
ran at full speed along the road in the di- 
rection in which the horses were headed. 
Rounding a corner of the mountain which 
the road skirted, he saw at a little distance a 
country wagon coming slowly toward him, 
drawn by a stout horse, the wagoner half 
asleep on the seat Instantly our father's 
resolve was taken. He ran up, stopped the 
horse, unhitched him in the twinkline of an 
eye, leaped upon his back, and was off like a 
flash, before the astonished driver, who was 
not used to two-legged whirlwinds, could 
utter a word. 

Probably the horse was equally astonished : 
but he felt a master on his back, and, urc^ed 



96 IVHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

by hand and voice, he sprang to his topmost 
speed, galloped bravely on, and soon over- 
took the lumbering carriage-horses, which 
were easily stopped. No one was hurt, 
though our mother and the nurse had of 
course been sadly frightened. The horses 
were turned, and soon they came in sight of 
the unhappy countryman, still sitting on his 
wagon, petrified with astonishment. He 
received a liberal reward, and probably re- 
gretted that there were no more mad Ameri- 
cans to " steal a ride," and pay for it. 

This presence of mind, this power of act- 
ing on the instant, was one of our father's 
great qualities. It was this that made him, 
when the wounded Greek sank down before 
him — 

"... fling him from his saddle, 
And place the stranger there." 

It was this, when arrested and imprisoned 
by the Prussian government on su.spicion of 
befriending unhappy Poland, that taught him 
what to do with the important papers he 
carried. In the minute during which he was 
left alone, before the official came to search 










*^k vK* »\^ ^ ' ^ V 






OUR FATHER. 99 

him, he thrust the documents up into the 
hollow head of a bust of the King of Prussia 
which stood on a shelf; then tore some un- 
important papers into the smallest possible 
fragments, and threw them into a basin of 
water which stood close at hand. 

Next day the fragments carefully pasted to- 
gether were shown to him, hours havino; been 
spent in the painful and laborious task ; but 
nobody thought of looking for more papers 
in the head of King Friedrich Wilhelm, 

Our father, though nothing could be proved 
against him, might have languished long in 
that Prussian prison had it not been for the 
exertions of a fellow-countryman. This gen- 
tleman had met him in the street the day 
before, had asked his address, and promised 
to call on him. Inquiring for him next day 
at the hotel, he was told that no such person 
was or had been there. Instantly suspecting 
foul play, this good friend went to the Amer- 
ican minister, and told his story. The min- 
ister took up the matter warmly, and called 
upon the Prussian officials to give up his 
countryman. This, after repeated denials of 



lOO WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

any knowledge of the affair, they at length 
reluctantly consented to do. Our father 
was taken out of prison at night, placed in a 
carriage, and driven across the border into 
France, where he was dismissed with a warn- 
ing never to set foot in Prussia again. 

One day, I remember, we were sitting at 
the dinner-table, when a messenger came 
flying, " all wild with haste and fear," to say 
that a fire had broken out at the Institution. 
Now, in those days there lay between Green 
Peace and the Institution a remnant of the 
famous Washington Heights, where Wash- 
ington and his staff had once made their 
camp. 

Much of the high ground had already been 
dug away, but there still remained a great 
hill sloping back and up from the garden 
wall, and terminating, on the side toward the 
Institution, in an abrupt precipice, some sixty 
feet high. The bearer of the bad news had 
been forced to come round by way of several 
streets, thus losing precious minutes; but the 
Doctor did not know what it was to lose a 
minute. Before any one could speak or ask 



OUR FATHER. lOI 

what he would do he was out of the house, 
ran through the garden, climbed the slope at 
the back, rushed like a flame across the green 
hill-top, and slid down the almost perpendic- 
ular face of the precipice ! Bruised and 
panting, he reached the Institution and saw 
at a glance that the fire was in the upper 
story. Take time to go round to the door 
and up the stairs ? Not he ! He " swarmed " 
up the gutter-spout, and in less time than it 
takes to tell it was on the roof, and cutting 
away at the burning timbers with an axe, 
which he had got hold of no one knows how. 
That fire was put out, as were several others 
at which our father assisted. 

Fire is swift, but it could not get ahead of 
the Doctor. 

These are a few of the stories ; but, as I 
said, it needs a volume to tell all about our 
father's life. I cannot tell in this short space 
how he worked with the friends of liberty to 
free the slave ; how he raised the poor and 
needy, and " helped them to help them- 
selves ; " how he was a light to the blind, 
and to all who walked in darkness, whether 



102 WHEN I WAS YOUR ACE. 

of sorrow, sin, or suffering. Most men, ab- 
sorbed in such high works as these would 
liave found scant leisure for family life and 
communion ; but no finger-ache of our 
fathers smallest child ever escaped his lov- 
ing care, no childish thought or wish ever 
failed to win his sympathy. We who had 
this high privilege of being his children 
love to think of him as the brave soldier, 
the wise physician, the great {philanthropist ; 
but dearest of all is the thought of him as 
our loving and tender father. 

And now, to end this chapter, you shall 
hear what Mr. Whittier, the noble and hon- 
ored poet, thought of this friend of his : — 

THE HERO. 

" Oh for a knight like Bayard, 
Without reproach or fear; 
My lii^ht glove on his casque of steel, 
My love-knot on his spear! 

" Oh for the white plume floating 
Sad Zutphen's field above, — 
The hon heart in battle, 

The woman's heart in love ! 



OUR FATHER. 103 

" Oh that man once more were manly, 
Woman's pride and not her scorn; 
That once more the pale young mother 
Dared to boast ' a man is born ' ! 

"But now life's slumberous current 
No sun-bowed cascade wakes; 
No tall, heroic manhood 
The level dullness breaks. 

*' Oh for a knight like Bayard, 
Without reproach or fear ! 
My light glove on his casque of steel, 
My love-knot on his spear ! " 

Then 1 said, my own lieart throbbing 
To the time her proud pulse beat, 
" Life hath its regal natures yet, — 
True, tender, brave, and sweet ! 

*' Smile not, fair unbeliever ! 
One man at least I know 
Who might wear the crest of Bayard, 
Or Sidney's plume of snow. 

" Once, when over purple mountains 
Died away the Grecian sun. 
And the far Cyllenian ranges 

Paled and darkened one by one, — 

" Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder, 
Cleaving all the quiet sky ; 
And against his sharp steel lightnings 
Stood the Suliote but to die. 



I04 IVHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

"Woe for the weak and halting! 
The crescent blazed behind 
A curving line of sabres 
Like fire before the wind ! 

" Last to fly and first to rally, 
Rode he of wliom I speak, 
When, groaning in his bridle-path, 
Sank down a wounded (ireek, — 

" With the rich Albanian costume 
Wet with many a ghastly stain, 
Gazing on earth and sky as one 
Who might not gaze again ! 

*' He looked forward to the mountains, 
Back on foes that never spare ; 
Then flung him from his saddle, 
And placed the stranger there. 

" ' Alia ! hu ! ' Through flashing sabres, 
Through a stormy hail of lead, 
The good Thessalian charger 
Up the slopes of olives sped. 

" Hot spurred the turbaned riders, — 
He almost felt their breath. 
Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down 
Between the hills and death. 

" One brave and manful struggle, — 
He gained the solid land, 
And the cover of the mountains 
And the carbines of his band." 



OUR FATHER. 105 

" It was very brave and noble," 

Said the moist-eyed listener then ; 

" But one brave deed makes no hero: 

Tell me what he since hath been ? " | 

i 

" Still a brave and generous manhood, \ 

Still an honor without stain, \ 

In the prison of the Kaiser, ; 

By the barricades of Seine. I 

" But dream not helm and harness 

The sign of valor true ; \ 

Peace hath higher tests of manhood 
Than battle ever knew. 

"Wouldst know him now ? Behold him, 
The Cadmus of the blind, 
Giving the dumb lip language, 
The idiot clay a mind ; 

" Walking his round of duty ' y 

Serenely day by day, I 

With the strong man's hand of labor, \ 

And childhood's heart of play ; I 

" True as the knights of story, I 

Sir Lancelot and his peers, ] 

Brave in his calm endurance 
As they in tilt of spears. 

1 
"As waves in stillest waters, 

As stars in noon-day skies, 

All that wakes to noble action 

In his noon of calmness Hes. 



I06 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

" Wherever outraged nature 

Asks word or action brave ; 
Wherever struggles labor, 
Wherever groans a slave ; 

•• Wherever rise the peoples, 
Wherever sinks a throne, — 
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds 
An answer in his own ' 

" Knight of a better era, 

Without reproach or fear! 
Said I not well that Bayards 
And Sidneys still are here ? " 



CHAPTER VI. 

JULIA WARD. 

Once upon a time, in a great house stand- 
ing at the corner of Bond Street and Broad- 
way, New York city, there lived a httle girl. 
She was named Julia, after her lovely young 
mother ; but as she grew she showed no re- 
semblance to that mother, with her great 
dark eyes and wealth of black ringlets. 
This little girl had red hair, and that 
was a dreadful thing in those days. Very 
fine, soft hair it was, thick and wavy, but — 
it was red. Visitors, coming to see her 
mother, would shake their heads and say, 
" Poor little Julia! what a pity she has red 
hair!" and the tender mother would sigh, 
and regret that her child should have this 
misfortune, when there was no red hair in 
the family so far as one knew. And the 
beautiful hair was combed with a leaden 



I08 UlIEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

comb, as one old lady said that would turn 
it dark ; and it was soaked in honey-water, as 
another old lady said that was really the best 
thing you could do with it; and the little 
Julia felt that she might almost as well be a 
hunchback or a cripple as that unfortunate 
creature, a red-haired child. 

When she was six years old, her beautiful 
mother died ; and after that Julia and her 
brothers and sisters were brought up by their 
good aunt, who came to make her home with 
them and their father. A very good aunt 
she was, and devoted to the motherless chil- 
dren ; but sometimes she did funny things. 
They went out to ride every day — the chil- 
dren, I mean — in a great yellow chariot 
lined with fine blue cloth. Now, it occurred 
to their kind aunt that it would have a 
charming effect if the children were dressed 
to match the chariot. So thousrht, so done ! 
Dressmakers and milliners plied their art ; 
and one day Broadway was electrified by the 
sight of the little Misses Ward, seated in 
uneasy state on the blue cushions, clad in 
wonderful raiment of yellow and blue. They 




Julia Ward and her Brothers, as Children. 

(From a miniature by Miss Anne Hall.) 



JULIA WARD. Ill 

had blue pelisses and yellow satin bonnets. 
And this was all very well for the two younger 
ones, with their dark eyes and hair, and their 
rosy cheeks ; but Julia, young as she was, 
felt dimly that blue and yellow was not the 
combination to set off her tawny locks and 
exquisite sea-shell complexion. It is not 
probable, however, that she sorrowed deeply 
over the funny clothes ; for her mind was 
never set on clothes, either in childhood or 
in later life. Did not her sister meet her 
one day coming home from school with one 
blue shoe and one green } Her mind was 
full of beautiful thoughts ; her eyes were 
lifted to the green trees and the blue sky 
bending above them : what did she care 
about shoes ? Yes ; and later is it not re- 
corded that her sisters had great difificulty 
in persuading her to choose the stuff for 
her wedding-gown } So indifferent was she 
to all matters of dress ! 

Auntie F. had her own ideas about shoes 
and stockings, — not the color, but the quality 
of them. She did not believe in " pompey- 
ing " the children ; so in the coldest winter 



112 WHEX 1 WAS YOUR AGE. 

weather Julia and her sisters went to school 
in thin slippers and white cotton stockings. 
You shiver at the bare thought of this, my 
girl readers! You look at your comfortable 
leggings and overshoes (that is, if you live 
in upper New England, or anywhere in the 
same latitude), and wonder how the Ward 
children lived through such a course of 
"hardening"! But they did live, and Julia 
seems now far younger and stronger than 
any of her children. 

School, which some children regard with 
mingled feelings (or so I have been told), 
was a delight to Julia. She grasped at 
knowledge with both hands, — plucked it as 
a little child plucks fiiowcrs, with unweary- 
ing enjoyment. Her teachers, like the "peo- 
ple " in the case of the 

" Young lady whose eyes 
Were unique as to color and size," 

all turned aside, and started away in surprise, 
as this little red-haired girl went on learning 
and learning and learning. At nine years 
old she was studying Paley's " Moral Phi- 
losophy," with girls of sixteen and eighteen. 



JULIA WARD. 113 

She could not have been older when she 
heard a class reciting an Italian lesson, and 
fell in love with the melodious language. 
She listened, and listened again ; then got a 
grammar and studied secretly, and one day 
handed to the astonished Italian teacher a 
letter correctly written in Italian, begging 
that she might join the class. 

When I was speaking of the good aunt 
who was a second mother to the Ward chil- 
dren, I meant to say a word of the stern but 
devoted father who was the principal figure 
in Julia's early life. She says of him : " He 
was a majestic person, of somewhat severe 
aspect and reserved manners, but with a vein 
of true geniality and a great benevolence 
of heart." And she adds: " His great grav- 
ity, and the absence of a mother, naturally 
subdued the tone of the whole household ; 
and though a greatly cherished set of chil- 
dren, we were not a very merry one." 

Still, with all his gravity. Grandfather 
Ward had his gleams of fun occasionally. 
It is told that Julia had a habit of dropping 
off her slippers while at table. One day her 



114 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

father felt a wandering shell of kid, with no 
foot to keep it steady. He put his own foot 
on it and moved it under his chair, then said 
in his deep, grave voice, " My daughter, will 
you bring me my seals, which I have left on 
the table in my room ? " And poor Julia, 
after a vain and frantic hunting with both 
feet, was forced to go, crimson-cheeked, 
white-stockinged and slipperless, on the 
required errand. She would never have 
dreamed of asking for the shoe. She was 
the eldest daughter, the companion and joy 
of this sternly loving father. She always 
sat next him at table, and sometimes he 
would take her right hand in his left, and 
hold it for many minutes together, continu- 
ing to eat his dinner with his right hand ; 
while she would rather go dinnerless than 
ask him to release her own fingers. 

Grandfather Ward ! It is a relief to con- 
fess our faults ; and it may be my duty to say 
that as soon as I could reach it on tiptoe, it 
was my joy to pull the nose of his marble 
bust, which stood in the great dining-room 
at Green Peace. It was a fine, smooth, long 



JULIA WARD. 115 

nose, most pleasant to pull ; I fear I soiled 
it sometimes with my little grimy fingers. I 
trust children never do such naughty things 
nowadays. 

\ Then there was Great-grandfather Ward, 
Julia's grandfather, who had the cradle 
and the great round spectacles. Doubtless 
he had many other things besides, for he 
was a substantial New York merchant ; but 
the cradle and the spectacles are the only 
possessions of his that I have seen. I have 
the cradle now, and I can testify that Great- 
grandfather Ward (for I believe he was 
rocked in it, as his descendants for four gen- 
erations since have been) must have been 
an extremely long baby. It is a fine old 
affair, of solid mahogany, and was evidently 
built to last as long as the Wards should 
last. Not so very long ago, two dear people 
who had been rocked together in that cradle 
fifty — or is it sixty } — years ago, sat down 
and clasped hands over it, and wept for 
pure love and tenderness and leal souvenir. 
Not less pleasant is its present use as the 
good ship " Pinafore," when six rosy, shout- 



Il6 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

ing children tumble into it and rock vio- 
lently, singing with might and main, — 

" We sail the ocean blue, 
And our saucy ship "s a beauty ! " 

That is all about the cradle. 

My mother writes thus of Great-grand- 
father Ward, her own grandfather : — 

" He had been a lieutenant-colonel in the war of 
American Independence. A letter from the Com- 
mander-in-Chief to Governor Samuel Ward (of 
Rhode Island) mentions a visit from " your son, a 
tall young man of soldierly aspect" I cannot quote 
the exact words. My grandfather had seen service 
in Arnold's march through ' the wilderness ' to 
Quebec. He was present at the battle of Red 
Bank. After the close of the war he engaged in 
commercial pursuits, and made a voyage to India 
as supercargo of a merchant xcssel belonging to 
Moses Brown, of Providence He was in Paris at 
the time of the king's death (Louis XVI.), and for 
some time before that tragic event. He speaks in 
his journal of having met several of the leading 
revolutionists of that time at a friend's house, and 
characterizes them as ' exceeding plain men, but 
very zealous.' He passed the day of the king's 
execution, which he calls ' one of horror,' in Ver- 
sailles, and was grieved at the conduct of several 




LiEUT.-CoL. Samuel Ward. 

Born Nov. 17, 1756 Died Aug. 16, 1S32. 



JULIA WARD. 119 

Americans, who not only remained in town, but 
also attended the execution. When he finally left 
Paris, a proscribed nobleman, disguised as a foot- 
man, accompanied the carriage, and so cheated the 
guillotine of one expected victim. 

" Colonel Ward, as my grandfather was always 
called, was a graduate of Brown University, and a 
man of scholarly tastes. He possessed a diamond 
edition of Latin classics, which always went with 
him in his campaigns, and which is still preserved 
in the family. In matters of art he was not so well 
posted. Of the pictures in the gallery of the Lux- 
embourg he remarks in his diary: 'The old pic- 
tures are considered the best, I cannot think why.' 

" I remember him as very tall, stooping a little, 
with white hair and mild blue eyes, which matched 
well his composed speech and manners." 

I have called Great-s^randfather Ward a 
merchant, but he was far more than that. 
The son of Governor Ward of Rhode Island, 
he was only eighteen when, as a gallant young 
captain, he marched his company to the 
siege of Boston ; and then (as his grandson 
writes me to-day) he " marched through the 
wilderness of Maine, through snow and ice, 
barefoot, to Quebec." Some of my readers 



I20 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

may possess an engraving of Trumbull's 
famous painting of the "Attack on Quebec." 
Look in the left-hand corner, and you will 
see a group of three, — one of them a young, 
active figure with flashing eyes ; that is 
Great-grandfather Ward. He rose to be ma- 
jor, then lieutenant-colonel ; was at Peeks- 
kill, Valley Forge, and Red Bank, and wrote 
the official account of the last-named battle, 
which may be found in Washington's corre- 
spondence. Besides being a good man and 
a brave soldier, he was a very good grand- 
father; and this made it all the more naughty 
for his granddaughter Julia to behave as she 
did one day. Being then a little child, she 
sat down at the piano, placed a music-book 
on the rack, and began to pound and thump 
on the keys, making the hideous discord 
which seems always to afford pleasure to 
the young. Her grandfather was sitting by, 
book in hand ; and after enduring the noise 
for some time patiently, he said in his kind, 
courtly way, " Is it so set down in the book, 
my dear } " 

"Yes, Grandpapa!" said naughty Julia, 



JULIA WARD. 121 

and went on banging; while grandpapa, who 
made no pretense of being a musician, offered 
no further comment or remonstrance. 

Julia grew up a student and a dreamer. 
She confesses to having been an extremely 
absent person, and much of the time uncon- 
scious of what passed around her. " In the 
large rooms of my father s house," she says, 
" I walked up and down, perpetually alone, 
dreaming of extraordinary things that I 
should see and do. I now began to read 
Shakspere and Byron, and to try my hand 
at poems and plays." She rejoices that none 
of the productions of this period were pub- 
lished, and adds : " I regard it as a piece of 
great good fortune ; for a little praise or a 
little censure would have been a much more 
disturbing element in those days than in 
these." I wish these sentiments were more 
general with young writers. 

Still, life was not all study and dreaming. 
There were sometimes merrymakings : wit- 
ness the gay ball after which Julia wrote to 
her brother, " I have been through the burn- 
ing fiery furnace ; and I am Sad-rake, Me- 



122 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

sick, and Abcd-no-go." There was mischief, 
too, and sometimes downright naughtiness. 
Who was tlie poor gentleman, an intimate 
friend of the family, from whom Julia and 
her sisters extracted a promise that he would 
eat nothing for three days but what they 
should send liim, — they in return promising 
three meals a day.f* He consented, inno- 
cently thinking that these dear young crea- 
tures wanted to display their skill in cookery, 
and expecting all kinds of delicacies and airy 
dainties of pastry and confectionery. Yes! 
and being a man of his word, he lived for 
three days on gruel, of which those " dear 
young creatures " sent him a bowl at morn- 
ing, noon, and night; and on nothing else! 

In a certain little cabinet where many 
precious things are kept, I have a manuscript 
poem, written by Julia Ward for the amuse- 
ment of her brothers and sisters when she 
was still a very young girl. It is called " The 
Ill-cut Mantell ; A Romaunt of the time of 
Kynge Arthur." The story is an old one, 
but the telling of it is all Julia's own, and 
I must quote a few lines : — 



JULIA WARD. 123 

♦' I cannot well describe in rhyme 
The female toilet of that time. 
I do not know how trains were carried, 
How single ladies dressed or married ; 
If caps were proper at a ball, 
Or even if caps were worn at all ; 
If robes were made of crape or tulle. 
If skirts were narrow, gored, or full. 
Perhaps, without consulting grace. 
The hair was scraped back from the face, 
While on the head a mountain rose. 
Crowned, like Mont Blanc, with endless snows. 
It may be that the locks were shorn ; 
It may be that the lofty puff. 
The stomacher, the rising ruff, 
The bodice, or the veil were worn. 
Perhaps mantillas were the passion. 
Perhaps ferronieres were in fashion, — 
I cannot, and I will not tell. 
But this one thing I wot full well, 
That every lady there was dressed 
In what she thought became her best. 
All further notices, I grieve, 
I must to your imagination leave. " 

Julia sometimes tried to awaken in her sis- 
ters' minds the poetic aspirations which filled 
her own. One day she found the two little 
girls playing some childish game, which 
seemed to her unnecessarily frivolous. (You 
all know, I am sure, the eldest sister's motto, — 



124 WHEN I WAS YOL'R AGE. 

" Good advice and counsel sage, 
And ' I never did so when I was your age ; ' " 

and the companion sentiment of the younger 
sister, — 

" ' Sister, don't ! ' and ' Sister, do ! ' 

And ' Why may not I as well as you ? ' ") 

Miss Ward, — she was always called Miss 
Ward, poor little dear ! and her dolls were 
taken away from her when she was only nine 
years old, that she might better feel the dig- 
nity of her position ! — Miss Ward rebuked 
the little sisters, and bade them lay aside their 
foolish toys and improve their minds by com- 
posing poetry. Louisa shook her black curls, 
and would not, — moreover, did not, being 
herself a child of some firmness. But little 
sweet Annie would try, to please Sister Julia ; 
and after much thought and labor slie pro- 
duced the following pious effusion : — 

" He feeds the ravens when they call, 
And stands them in a pleasant hall." 

I never can recall these lines without having 
an instant vision of a pillared hall, fair and 





'W'"' 



Julia Ward. 



JULIA WARD. 127 

stately, with ravens standing in niches along 
the sides, between the marble columns ! 

So this maiden, Julia, grew up to woman- 
hood, dreamy and absent, absorbed in severe 
study and composition, yet always ready with 
the brilliant flashes of her wit, which broke 
like sunbeams through the mist of dreams. 
She was very fair to look upon. No one 
now pitied her for the glorious crown of 
red-gold hair, which set off the rose and 
ivory of her matchless complexion ; every 
one recognized and acknowledged in her 
" stately Julia, queen of all." 

Once, while on a visit to Boston, Julia 
heard the wonderful story of Laura Bridg- 
man, who had just been led out of darkness 
into the light of life and joy by a certain 
Dr. Howe, a man of whom people spoke as 
a modern paladin of romance, a Roland or 
Bayard. She saw him, and felt at once that 
he was the most remarkable man she had 
ever known. He, on his part, saw a youth- 
ful prophetess, radiant and inspired, crowned 
with golden hair. Acquaintance ripened 
into friendship, friendship into love ; and 



128 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

SO it happened that, in the year 1843, 
Samuel G. Howe and Julia Ward were mar- 
ried. The next chapter shall tell you of 
Julia Ward Howe, as we, her children, have 
known her. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OUR MOTHER. 

* 

(MRS JULIA WARD HOWE.) 

Our mother's story should be sung rather 
than said, so much has music to do with it. 
My earliest recollection of my mother is of 
her standing by the piano in the great din- 
ins-room, dressed in black velvet, with her 
beautiful neck and arms bare, and singing to 
us. Her voice was a very rare and perfect 
one, we have since learned ; we knew then 
only that we did not care to hear any one 
€lse sing when we might hear her. The 
time for singing was at twilight, when the 
dancing was over, and we gathered breath- 
less and exhausted about the piano for the 
last and greatest treat. Then the beautiful 
voice would break out, and flood the room 
with melody, and fill our childish hearts with 
almost painful rapture. Our mother knew all 
the sonos in the world, — that was our firm 



130 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

belief. Certainly we never found an end to 
her repertory. 

There were German student songs, which 
she had learned from her brother when he 
came back from Heidelberg, — merry, jovial 
ditties, with choruses of " Juvevallcra ! " and 
" Za hi ! Za he ! Za ho-o-o-o-o-oh ! " in which 
we joined with boundless enthusiasm. There 
were gay little French songs, all ripple and 
sparkle and trill; and soft, melting Italian 
serenades and barcaroles, which we thoufrht 
must be like the notes of the nightingale. 
And when we called to have our favorites 
repeated again and again, she would sing 
them over and over with never failing pa- 
tience ; and not one of us ever guessed, as 
we listened with all our souls, that the cun- 
nino: mother was frivins: us a French lesson, 
or a German or Italian lesson, as the case 
might be, and that what was learned in that 
way would never be forgotten all our lives 
long. 

Besides the foreign songs, there were many 
songs of our mother's own making, which we 
were never weary of hearing. Sometimes 




Julia Ward Howe. 



OUR MOTHER, 133 

she composed a melody for some old ballad, 
but more often the words and music both 
were hers. Where were such nonsense-songs 
as hers ? 

" Little old dog sits under the chair, 
Twenty-five grasshoppers snarled in his hair. 
Little old dog's beginning to snore. 
Mother forbids him to do so no more." 

Or again, — 

" Hush, my darling, don't you cry ! 

Your sweetheart will come by and by. 

When he comes, he'll come in green, — 
. That 's a sign that you 're his queen. 

" Hush, my darling, don't you cry ! 
Your sweetheart will come by and by, 
When he comes, he '11 come in blue, — 
That's a sign that he '11 be true." 

And so on through all the colors of the rain- 
bow, till finally expectation was wrought up 
to the highest pitch by the concluding lines : 

" When he comes, he '11 come in gray, — 
That's a sign he '11 come to-day! " 

Then it was a pleasant thing that each 
child could have his or her own particular 
song merely for the asking. Laura well re- 



134 WHEN I IV AS YOUR AGE. 

members her good-night song, which was 
sung to the very prettiest tune in the world : 

" Sleep, my little child, 
So gentle, sweet, and mild! 
The little lamb has gone to rest, 
The little bird is in its nest," — 

" Put in the donkey ! " cried Laura, at this 
point of the first singing. " Please put in 
the donkey ! " So the mother went on, — 

"The little donkey in the stable 
Sleeps as sound as he is able ; 
All things now their rest pursue, 
You are sleepy too." 

It was with this song sounding softly in 
her ears, and with the beautiful hand, like 
soft warm ivory, stroking her hair, that 
Laura used to fall asleep. Do you not envy 
the child? 

Maud's songs were perhaps the loveliest 
of all, though they could not be dearer than 
my donkey-song. Here is one of them : — 

"Baby with the hat and plume, 
And the scarlet cloak so fine, 
Come where thou hast rest and room, 
Little baby mine! 



OUR MOTHER. 1 35 

' Whence those eyes so crystal clear ? 
Whence those curls, so silky soft ? 
Thou art Mother's darling dear, 
I have told thee oft. 

" I have told thee many times. 
And repeat it yet again, 
Wreathing thee about with rhymes 
Like a flowery chain, — 

" Rhymes that sever and unite 
As the blossom fetters do, 
As the mother's weary night 
Happy days renew." 



Perhaps some of my readers may already 
know the lovely verses called " Baby's 
Shoes." 

" " Little feet, pretty feet, 
Feet of fairy Maud, — 
Fair and fleet, trim and neat, 
Carry her abroad ! 

" Be as wings, tiny things, 
To my butterfly ; 
In the flowers, hours on hours, 
Let my darhng lie. 

** Shine ye must, in the dust. 
Twinkle as she runs, 
Threading a necklace gay, 
Through the summer suns. 



136 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

" Stringing days, borrowing phrase, 
Weaving wondrous plots, 
With her eyes blue and wise 
As forget-me-nots 

''Cinderel, grown a belle, 
Coming from her ball. 
Frightened much, let just such 
A tiny slipper fall. 

"If men knew as I do 

Half thy sweets, my own, 
They 'd not delay another day, — 
I should be alone. 

" Come and go, friend and foe, 
Fairy Prince most fine ! 
Take your gear otherwhere 1 
Maud is only mine." 

But it was not all singing, of course. Our 
mother read to us a great deal too, and told 
us stories, from the Trojan War down to 
" Puss in Boots." It was under her care, I 
think, that we used to look over the " Shak- 
spere book." This was a huge folio, bound 
in rusty-brown leather, and containing the 
famous Boydcll prints illustrating the plays 
of Shakspere. The frontispiece represented 
Shakspere nursed by Tragedy and Comedy, — 



OUR MOTHER. 137 

the prettiest, chubbiest of babies, seated on 
the ground with his little toes curled up 
under him, while a lovely, laughing lady bent 
down to whisper in his ear; and another one, 
grave but no less beautiful, gazed earnestly 
upon him. Then came the " Tempest," — 
oh, most lovely! The first picture showed 
Ariel dancing along the "yellow sands," 
while Prospero waved him on with a com- 
manding gesture; in the second, Miranda, 
all white and lovely, was coming out of the 
darksome cavern, and smiling with tender 
compassion on Ferdinand, who was trying to 
lift an impossible log. Then there was the 
delicious terror of the " Macbeth " pictures, 
with the witches and Banquo's ghost. But 
soon our mother would turn the page and 
show us the exquisite figure of Puck, sitting 
on a toadstool, and make us shout with 
laughter over Nick Bottom and his rustic 
mates. From these magic pages we learned 
to hate Richard III. duly, and to love the 
little princes, whom Northcote's lovely pic- 
ture showed in white-satin doublet and hose, 
embracing each other, while the wicked un- 



138 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

cle glowered at them from behind ; and we 
wept over the second picture, where they lay 
asleep, unconscious of the fierce faces bend- 
ing over them. Yes, we loved the " Shak- 
spere book" very much. 

Sometimes our mother would 2:ive us a 
party, — and that was sure to be a delight- 
ful affair, with charades or magic lantern or 
something of the kind. Here is an account 
of one such party, written by our mother 
herself in a letter to her sister, which lies 
before me : — 

" My guests arrived in omnibus loads at four 
o'clock. My notes to parents concluded with the 
following P. S. : ' Return omnibus provided, with 
insurance against plum-cake and other accidents.' 
A donkey carriage afforded great amusement out 
of doors, together with swing, bowling-allc}', aiui 
the Great Junk. [I have not mentioned the Junk 
yet, but you shall hear of it in good time.] While 
all this was going on, the H.'s, J. S., and I prepared 
a theatrical exhibition, of which I had made a 
hasty outline. It was the story of ' Blue l?card.' 
We had curtains which drew back and forth, and 
regular footlights. You can't think how good it 
was 1 There were four scenes. My antique cabi- 



OUR MOTHER. 139 

net was the ' Blue Beard ' cabinet ; we yelled in 
delightful chorus when the door was opened, and 
the children stretched their necks to the last de- 
crree to see the horrible sight. The curtain closed 
upon a fainting-fit, done by four women. In the 
third scene we were scrubbing the fatal key, when 
I cried out, ' Try the mustang liniment! It's the 
liniment for us, for you know we must hang if we 
don't succeed ! ' This, which was made on the 
spur of the moment, overcame the whole audience 
with laughter, and I myself shook so that I had to 
go down into the tub in which we were scrubbing 
the key. Well, to make a long story short, our 
play was very successful, and immediately after- 
ward came supper. There were four long tables 
for the children ; twenty sat at each. Ice-cream, 
cake, blancmange, and dehcious sugar-plums, also 
oranges, etc., were served up ' in style.' We had 
our supper a little later. Three omnibus-loads 
went from my door ; the last — the grown people 
— at nine o'clock." 

In another letter to the same dear sister, 
our mother says : — 

" I have written a play for our doll theatre, and 
performed it yesterday afternoon with great suc- 
cess. It occupied nearly an hour. I had alter- 
nately to grunt and squeak the parts, while Chev 



I40 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

played the puppets. [Chev was the name by 
which she aKva}'s called our father ; it was an ab- 
breviation of Chevalier, for he was always to her 
the ' knight without reproach or fear.'] The effect 
was really extremely good. The spectators were 
in a dark room, and the little theatre, lighted by a 
lamp from the top, looked very pretty." 

This may have been the play of " Beauty 
and the Beast," of which the manuscript is 
unhappily lost I can recall but one passage : 

" But lie thought on ' Beauty's ' flower, 
And he popped into a bower, 
And he plucked the fairest rose 
That grew beneath his nose." 

I remember the theatre well, and the pup- 
pets. They were quite unearthly in their 
beauty, — all except the " Beast," a strange, 
fur-covered monstrosity. The " Prince " was 
gilded in a most enchanting manner, and his 
mustache curled with an e.\prcssion of royal 
pride. I have seen no other prince like him. 

All this was at Green Peace; but many as 
are the associations with her beloved pres- 
ence there, it is at the Valley that I most 
constantly picture our mother. She loved 



OUR MOTHER. I41 

the Valley more than any other place on 
earth, I think ; so it is always pleasant to 
fancy her there. Study formed always an 
important part of her life. It was her delight 
and recreation, when wearied with household 
cares, to plunge into German metaphysics, 
or into the works of the Latin poets, whom 
she greatly loved. She has told, in one of 
her own poems, how she used to sit under 
the apple-trees with her favorite poet, — 

" Here amid shadows, lovingly embracing, 
Dropt from above by apple-trees unfruitful, 
With a chance scholar, caught and held to help me, 
Read I in Horace,'' etc. 

But I do not think she had great need of 
the " chance scholar." I remember the book 
well, — two great brown volumes, morocco- 
bound, with " Horatius Ed. Orelli " on the 
back. We naturally supposed this to be the 
writer's entire name ; and to this day, 
' Ouintus Horatius Flaccus ' (though I have 
nothing to say against its authenticity) does 
not seem to me as real a name as " Horatius 
Ed. Orelli." 

Our mother's books, — alas that we should 



14- U'HEX I WAS YOi'R AGE. 

have been so familiar with the outside of 
them, and have known so little of the inside ! 
There was Tacitus, who was high-shouldered 
and pleasant to handle, being bound in 
smooth brown calf. There was Kant, who 
could not spell his own name (we thought 
it ought to begin with a C !). There was 
Spinoza, whom we fancied a hunchback, 
with a long, thin, vibrating nose. (" What s 
in a name?" A great deal, dear Juliet, I 
assure you.) Fichte had a sneezing sort of 
face, with the nose all "squinnied up," as we 
used to say; and as for Hilpert, who wrote 
the great German dictionary, there can be 
no reasonable doubt that he was a cripple 
and went on crutches, though I have no 
authority to give for the fact beyond the 
resemblance of his name to the Scotch verb 
*' hirple," meaning " to hobble." 

Very, very much our mother loved her 
books. Yet how quickly were they laid 
aside when any head was bumped, any knee 
scratched, any finger cut! When we tumbled 
down and hurt ourselves, our father always 
•cried, " Jump up and take another ! " and 



OUR MOTHER. 1 43 

that was very good for us ; but our mother's 
kiss made it easier to jump up. 

Horace could be brought out under the 
apple-trees ; even Kant and Spinoza some- 
times came there, though I doubt whether 
they enjoyed the fresh air. But our mother 
had other work besides study, and many of 
her most precious hours were spent each day 
at the little black table in her own room, 
where papers lay heaped like snowdrifts. 
Here she wrote the beautiful poems, the 
brilliant essays, the earnest and thoughtful 
addresses, which have given pleasure and 
help and comfort to so many people through- 
out the length and breadth of the land. 
Many of her words have become household 
sayings which we could not spare ; but there 
is one poem which every child knows, at 
whose opening line every heart, from youth 
to age, must thrill, — "The Batde Hymn of 
the Republic." Thirty years have passed 
since this noble poem was written. It came 
in that first year of the war, like the sound 
of a silver trumpet, like the flash of a lifted 
sword ; and all men felt that this was the 



144 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

word for which they had been waiting. You 
shall hear, in our mother's own words, how 
it came to be written : — 

" In the late autumn of the year i86i I visited 
the national capital in company with my husband 
Dr. Howe, and a party of friends, among whom 
were Governor and Mrs. Andrew, Mr. and Mrs. 
E. P. Whipple, and my dear pastor Rev. James 
Freeman Clarke. 

" The journey was one of vivid, even romantic 
interest. We were about to see the grim Demon 
of War face to face ; and long before we reached 
the city his presence made itself felt in the blaze 
of fires along the road where sat or stood our 
pickets, guarding the road on which wc travelled. 

" One day we drove out to attend a review of 
troops, appointed to take place some distance from 
the city. In the carriage with me were James 
Freeman Clarke and Mr. and Mrs. Whipple. The 
day was fine, and everything promised well ; but 
a sudden surprise on the part of the enemy in- 
terrupted the proceedings before they were well 
begun. A small body of our men had been 
surrounded and cut off from their companions; 
reinforcements were sent to their assistance, and 
the expected pageant was necessarily given up. 
The troops who were to have taken part in it were 



OUR MOTHER. I4S 

ordered back to their quarters, and we also turned 
our horses' heads homeward. 

" For a long distance the foot-soldiers nearly- 
filled the road. They were before and behind, 
and we were obliged to drive very slowly. We 
presently began to sing some of the well-known 
songs of the war, and among them — 

' John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the s^rave.' 

This seemed to please the soldiers, who cried, 
' Good for you ! ' and themselves took up the 
strain. Mr. Clarke said to me, ' You ought to 
write some new words to that tune.' I replied 
that I had often wished to do so. 

"In spite of the excitement of the day I went 
to bed and slept as usual, but awoke next morn- 
ing in the gray of the early dawn, and to my 
astonishment found that the wished-for lines were 
arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite 
still until the last verse had completed itself in my 
thoughts, then hastily rose, saying to myself, ' I 
shall lose this if I don't write it down immediately.' 
I searched for a sheet of paper and an old stump 
of a pen which I had had the night before, and 
began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, 
as I had learned to do by often scratching down 
verses in the darkened room where my little chil- 
dren were sleeping. Having completed this, I lay 

10 



146 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

down again and fell asleep, but not without feel- 
ing that something of importance had happened 
to me. 

" The poem was published soon after this time 
in the Atlantic Monthly. It first came promi- 
nently into notice when Chaplain McCabe, newly 
released from Libby Prison, gave a lecture in 
Washington, and in the course of it told how he 
and his fellow-prisoners, having somehow become 
possessed of a copy of the ' Battle Hymn,' sang it 
with a will in their prison, on receiving surreptitious 
tidings of a Union victory." 

Our mother's genius might soar as high 
as heaven on the wings of such a song as 
this ; but we always considered that she was 
tied to our little string, and we never doubted 
(alas !) our perfect right to pull her down to 
earth wiicnever a matter of importance — 
such as a doll's funeral or a sick kitten — 
was at hand. 

To her our confidences were made, for she 
had a rare understanding of the child-mind. 
We were always sure that Mamma knew 
" just how it was." 

To her did Julia, at the' age of five, or it 
may have been six, impart the first utter- 



OUR MOTHER. 



147 



ances of her infant Muse. " Mamma," said 
the child, trembling with delight and awe, 
" I have made a poem, and set it to music ! " 
Of course our mother was deeply interested, 
and begged to hear the composition ; where- 
upon, encouraged by her voice and smile, 
Julia sang as follows : — 



E^= 



-A— N— N- 



^=i 



^i=i-- 



■0-r 



I had a lit -tie boy; He died when he was young. 



g 



As soon as he was dead, He walked up-on his tongue ! 



Our mother's ear for music was exquisitely 
fine, — so fine, that when she was in her own 
room, and a child practising below-stairs 
played a false note, she would open her door 
and cry, " B Jia^, dear ! not B natural ! " 
This beinsf so, it was ofrievous to her when 
one day, during her precious study hour, 
Harry came and chanted outside her door: 



" Hong-kong I hong-kong ! hong-kong ! " 



148 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

" Harry !" she cried, "do stop that dreadful 
noise!" But when the httle lad showed 
a piteous face, and said reproachfully, 
"Why, Mamma, I was singing to you!" 
who so ready as our mother to listen to 
the funny song and thank the child for 
it? 

When ten-year-old Laura wrote, in a cer- 
tain precious little volume bound in Scotch 
plaid, " Whence these longings after the 
infinite?" (I cannot remember any more!) 
be sure that if any eyes were suffered to rest 
upon the sacred lines they were those kind, 
clear, understanding gray eyes of our mother. 

Through all and round all, like a laughing- 
river, flowed the current of her wit and fun. 
No child could be sad in her company. If 
we were cold, there was a merry bout of 
" fisticuffs " to warm us ; if we were too 
warm, there was a song or story while we 
sat still and "cooled off." We all had nick- 
names, our own names being often too 
sober to suit her laughing mood. We were 
" Petotty," " Jehu," " Wolly," and " Bunks of 
Bunktown. ' 




JuLU RoMANA Howe. 



OUR MOTHER. 1 51 

On one occasion our mother's presence of 
mind saved the Hfe of the child Laura, then 
a baby of two years old. We were all stay- 
ins: at the Institution for some reason, and 
the nursery was in the fourth story of the 
lofty building. One day our mother came 
into the room, and to her horror saw little 
Laura rolling about on the broad window- 
sill, the window being wide open ; only a 
few inches space between her and the edge, 
and then — the street, fifty feet below ! The 
nurse was, I know not where, — anywhere 
save where she ought to have been. Our 
mother stepped quickly and quietly back out 
of sight, and called gently, " Laura ! come 
here, dear ! Come to me ! I have something 
to show you." A moment's agonized pause, 
— and then she heard the little feet patter 
on the floor, and in another instant held the 
child clasped in her arms. If she had 
screamed, or rushed forward, the child would 
have started, and probably would have fallen 
and been dashed to pieces. 

It was very strange to us to find other 
children holding their revels without their 



152 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

father and mother. " Papa and Mamma '' 
were ahvays the life and soul of ours. 

Our mother's letters to her sister are 
delightful, and abound in allusions to the 
children. In one of them she playfully 
upbraids her sister for want of attention to 
the needs of the baby of the day, in what 
she calls " Family Trochaics " : — 

" Send along that other pink shoe 
You have been so long in knitting ! 
Are you not ashamed to think that 
Wool was paid for at Miss Carman's 
With explicit understanding 
You should knit it for my baby? 
And that baby 's now a-barefoot, 
While your own. no doubt, has choice of 
Pink, blue, yellow — every color. 
For its little drawn-up toe-toes. 
For its toe-toes, small as green peas, 
Counted daily by the mother. 
To be sure that none is missing ! " 

Our mother could find amusement in 
almost anything. Even a winter day of 
pouring rain, which made other housewives 
groan and shake their heads at thought of 
the washing, could draw from her the follow- 
ing lines : — 



OUR MOTHER. 153 

THE RAINY DAY. 

{After Longfellow.) 

The morn was dark, the weather low, 
The household fed by gaslight show, — 
When from the street a shriek arose : 
The milkman, bellowing through his nose, 
Expluvior ! 

The butcher came, a walking flood, 
Drenching the kitchen where he stood; 
" Deucalion is your name, I pray ? " 
" Moses ! " he choked, and slid away. 
Expluvior ! 

The neighbor had a coach and pair 
To struggle out and take the air ; 
Slip-slop, the loose galoshes went ; 
I watched his paddling with content. 
Expluvior ! 

A wretch came floundering up the ice 
(The rain had washed it smooth and nice), 
Two ribs stove in above his head, 
As, turning inside out, he said, 
Expluvior ! 

No doubt, alas! we often imposed upon 
the tenderness of this dear mother. She 
was always absent-minded, and of this quality 
advantage was sometimes taken. One day^ 



154 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

when guests were dining with her, Harry 
came and asked if he might do something 
that happened to be against the rules. " No, 
dear," said our mother, and went on with the 
conversation. In a few moments Harry was 
at her elbow again with the same question, 
and received the same answer. This was 
repeated an indefinite number of times ; at 
length our mother awoke suddenly to tlie 
absurdity of it, and, turning to the child, 
said : " Harry, what do you mean by asking 
me this question over and over again, when 
I have said ' no ' each time .'* " " Because," 
was the reply, " Flossy said that if I asked 
often enough, you might say ' yes ! ' " 

I am glad to say that our mother did not 
"say yes" on this occasion. But, on the 
other hand, Maud was not whipped for tak- 
ing the cherries, when she needed a whipping 
sorely. The story is this : it was in the 
silent days of her babyhood, for Maud did 
not speak a single word till she was two 
years and a half old ; then she said, one 
day, "Look at that little dog!" and after 
that talked as well as anv child. But if she 



OUR MOTHER. 155 

did not speak in those baby days, she thought 
a great deal. One day she thought she 
wanted some wild cherries from the little 
tree by the stone-wall, down behind the corn- 
crib at the Valley. So she took them, such 
being her disposition. Our mother, coming 
upon the child thus, forbade her strictly to 
touch the cherries, showing her at the same 
time a little switch, and saying : " If you eat 
any more cherries, I shall have to whip you 
with this switch ! " She went into the house, 
and forgot the incident. But presently Maud 
appeared, with a bunch of cherries in one 
hand and the switch in the other. Fixing 
her great blue eyes on our mother with 
earnest meaning, she put the cherries in her 
mouth, and then held out the switch. Alas ! 
and our mother — did — not — whip her! I 
mention this merely to show that our mother 
was (and, indeed, is) mortal. But Maud was 
the baby, and the prettiest thing in the world, 
and had a way with her that was very hard 
to resist. 

It was worth while to have measles and 
things of that sort, not because one had 



156 ll'HEX I WAS VOL'R AGE. 

stewed primes and cream-toast — oh, no! — 
but because our mother sat by us, and sang 
" Lord Thomas and Fair EHnor," or some 
mystic ballad. 

The walks with her are never to be for- 
gotten, — twilight walks round the hill be- 
hind the house, with the wonderful sunset 
deepening over the bay, turning all the world 
to gold and jewels ; or through the Valley 
itself, the lovely wild glen, with its waterfall 
and its murmurins: stream, and the solemn 
Norway firs, with their warning fingers. The 
stream was clear as crystal, its rocky banks 
fringed with jewel-weed and rushes ; the level 
sward was smooth and green as emerald. 
By the waterfall stood an old mill, whose 
black walls looked down on a deep brown 
pool, into which the foaming cascade fell 
with a musical, rushing sound. I have de- 
scribed the Valley very fully elsewhere,^ but 
cannot resist dwelling on its beauty again in 
connection with our mother, — who loved so 
to wander through it, or to sit with her w^ork 
under the huge ash-tree in the middle, where 

1 In the book entitled " (~)uecn Hildesarcli."' 




Julia Ward Howe. 

(From a recent photograph ) 



OUR MOTHER. 1 59 

our father had placed seats and a rustic 
table. Here, and in the lovely, lonely fields, 
as we walked, our mother talked with us, 
and we might share the rich treasures of her 
thought. 

" And oh the words that fell from her mouth 
Were words of wonder and words of truth ! " 

One such word, dropped in the course of 
conversation as the maiden in the fairy-story 
dropped diamonds and pearls, comes now to 
my mind, and I shall write it here because it 
is good to think of and to say over to one's 
self: — 

" I gave my son a palace 

And a kingdom to control, — 
The palace of his body, 
The kingdom of his soul " 

In the Valley, too, many famous parties 
and picnics were given. The latter are to 
be remembered with especial delight. A 
picnic with our mother and one without her 
are two very different things. I never knew 
that a picnic could be dull till I grew up 
and went to one where that brilliant, gra- 
cious presence was lacking. The games we 



l6o WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

played, the songs we sang, the garlands of 
oak and maple leaves that we wove, listening 
to the gay talk if we were little, joining in it 
when we were older ; the simple feast, and 
then the improvised charades or tableaux, 
always merry, often graceful and lovely! — 
ah, these are things to remember ! 

Our mother's hospitality was boundless. 
She loved to fill the little house to overflow- 
ing in summer days, when every one was 
glad to get out into the fresh, green country. 
Often the beds were all filled, and we children 
had to take to sofas and cots: once, I remem- 
ber, Harry slept on a mattress laid on top of 
the piano, there being no other vacant spot. 

Sonietimes strangers as well as friends 
shared this kindly hospitality. I well re- 
member one wild stormy night, when two 
men knocked at the door and begged for a 
nights lodging. They were walking to the 
town, they said, five miles distant, but had 
been overtaken by the storm. The people 
at the farm-house near by had refused to 
take them in ; there was no other shelter 
near. Our mother hesitated a moment. 



OUR MOTHER. l6l 

Our father was away ; the old coachman 
slept in the barn, at some distance from the 
house ; she was alone with the children 
and the two maids, and Julia was ill with a 
fever. These men might be vagabonds, or 
worse. Should she let them in ? Then, 
perhaps, she may have heard, amid the howl- 
ing: of the storm, a voice which she has fol- 
lowed all her life, saying, " I was a stranger, 
and ye took me in ! " She bade the men 
enter, in God's name, and gave them food, 
and then led them to an upper bedroom, 
cautioning them to tread softly as they 
passed the door of the sick child's room. 

Well, that is all. Nothing happened. 
The men proved to be quiet, respectable 
persons, who departed, thankful, the next 
morning. 

The music of our mother's life is still 
sounding on, noble, helpful, and beautiful. 
Many people may still look into her serene 
face, and hear her silver voice ; and no one 
will look or hear without being the better 
for it. I cannot close this chapter better 
than with some of her own words, — a poem 



1 62 WHEX I WAS YOi'R AGE. 

which I wish every child, and every grown 
person too, who reads this might learn by 
heart. 

A PARABLE. 

" I sent a child of mine to-day : 

1 hope you used him well." 
" Now, Lord, no visitor of yours 

Has waited at my bell. 

•' The children of the millionaire 
Run up and down our street; 
I glory in their wcll-conibed hair, 
Their dress and trim complete. 

" But yours would in a chariot come 
With thoroughbreds so gay. 
And little merry maids and men 
To cheer him on his way." 

"Stood, then, no child before your door?*' 

The Lord, persistent, said. 
'' Only a ragged beggar-boy. 

With rough and frowzy head. 

" The dirt was crusted on his skin, 
His muddy feet were bare ; 
The cook gave victuals from within ; 
I cursed his coming there." 

What sorrow, silvered with a smile. 

Glides o 'er the face divine .'' 
What tenderest whisper thrills rebuke? 

" The beggar-boy was mine ! " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OUR TEACHERS. 

I DO not know why we had so many teachers. 
No doubt it was partly because we were very 
troublesome children. But I think it was 
also partly owing to the fact that our father 
was constantly overrun by needy foreigners 
seeking employment. He was a philanthro- 
pist ; he had been abroad, and spoke foreign 
languages, — that was enough! His office 
was besieged by " all peoples, nations, and 
languages," — all, as a rule, hungry, — Greeks, 
Germans, Poles, Hungarians, occasionally a 
Frenchman or an Englishman, though these 
last were rare. Many of them were political 
exiles ; sometimes they brought letters from 
friends in Europe, sometimes not. 

Our father's heart never failed to respond 
to any appeal of this kind when the appli- 
cant really wanted work ; for sturdy beggars 
he had no mercy. So it sometimes hap- 



1 64 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

pened that, while waiting for something else 
to turn up, the exile of the day would be set 
to teaching us, — partly to give him employ- 
ment, partly also by way of finding out what 
he knew and was fit for. In this way did 
Professor Feaster (this may not be the cor- 
rect spelling, but it was our way, and suited 
him well) come to be our tutor for a time. 
He was a very stout man, so stout that we 
considered him a second Daniel Lambert. 
He may have been an excellent teacher, but 
almost my only recollection of him is that 
he made the most enchanting little paper 
houses, with green doors and blinds that 
opened and shut. He painted the inside of 
the houses in some mysterious way, — at 
least there were patterns on the floor, like 
mosaic-work, — and the only drawback to 
our perfect happiness on receiving one of 
them was that we were too bis: to uct 
inside. 

I say this is almost my only recollection of 
this worthy man ; but candor compels me 
to add that the other picture which his 
name conjures up is of Harry and Laura 



OUR TEACHERS. 165 

marching round the dining-room table, each 
shouldering a log of wood, and shouting, — 

" We 'II kill old Feaster ! 
We '11 kill old Feaster ! " 

This was very naughty indeed; but, as I 
have said before, we were often naughty. 

One thing more I do recollect about poor 
Professor Feaster. Flossy was at once his 
delight and his terror. She was so bright, 
so original, so — alas ! so impish. She used 
to climb up on his back, lean over his 
shoulder, and pull out his watch to see if 
the lesson-hour were over. To be sure, she 
was only eight at this time, and possibly 
the scenes from " Wilhelm Tell " which he 
loved to declaim with republican fervor 
may have been rather beyond her infant 
comprehension. 

One day Flossy made up her mind that 
the Professor should take her way about 
something — I quite forget what — rather 
than his own. She set herself deliberately 
against him, — three feet to six! — and de- 
clared that he should do as she said. The 



1 66 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

poor Professor looked down on this fiery 
pygmy with eyes tliat sparkled through his 
gold-bowed spectacles. " I haf refused," he 
cried in desperation, " to opey ze Emperor of 
Austria, mees ! Do you sink I will opey 
you ? " 

Then there was Madame S , a Danish 

lady, very worthy, very accomplished, and — 
ugly enough to frighten all knowledge out 
of a child's head. She was my childish ideal 
of personal uncomeliness, yet she was most 
good and kind. 

It was whispered that she had come to 
this country with intent to join the Mormons 
(of course we heard nothing of this till years 
after), but the plan had fallen through; she, 

Madame S , did not understand why, but 

our mother, on looking at her, thought the 
explanation not so difficult. She had a re- 
ligion of her own, this poor, good, ugly dame. 
It was probably an entirely harmless one, 
though she startled our mother one day by 
approving the action of certain fanatics who 
had killed one of their number (by liis own 
consent) because he had a devil. " If he did 



OUR TEACHERS. 167 

have a devil," quoth Madame, beaming mildly 
over the purple morning-glory she was cro- 
cheting, " it may have been a good thing 
that he was killed." 

As I say, this startled our mother, who 
began to wonder what would happen if 

jMadame S should take it into her head 

that any of our family was possessed by a 
devil ; but neither poison nor dagger ap- 
peared, and Madame was never anything 
but the meekest of women. 

I must not forget to say that before she 
began to teach she had wished to become a 
lecturer. She had a lecture all ready; it 
began with a poetical outburst, as follows : 

" I am a Dane ! I am a Dane ! 
I am not ashamed of the royal name ! " 

But we never heard of its being delivered. 

I find this mention of Madame S in a 

letter from our mother to her sister : — 

" Danish woman very ugly, 
But remarkably instructive, — 
Drawing, painting, French, and German, 
Fancy-work of all descriptions, 
With geography and grammar. 
She will teach for very little, 
And is a superior person." 



l68 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE, 

I remember some of the fancy-work. 
There were pink-worsted roses, very wonder- 
ful, — really not at all like the common roses 
one sees in gardens. You wound the worsted 
round and round, spirally, and then you ran 
your needle down through the petal and 
pulled it a little ; this, as any person of in- 
telligence will readily perceive, made a rose- 
petal with a dent of the proper shape in it. 
These petals had to be pressed in a book to 
keep them flat, while others were making. 
Sometimes, years and years after, one would 
find two or three of them between the leaves 
of an old volume of " Punch," or some other 
book; and instantly would rise up before the 

mind's eye the figure of Madame S , with 

scarlet face and dark-green dress, and a very 
remarkable nose. 

Flossy reminds me that she always smelt 
of peppermint. So she did, poor lady ! and 
prol^ably took it for its medicinal properties. 

Then there was the wax fruit. You young 
people of sophisticated to-day, who make 
such things of real beauty with your skilful, 
kindergarten-trained fingers, what would you 



OUR TEACHERS. 1 69 

say to the wax fruit and flowers of our child- 
hood ? Perhaps you would Hke to know how 
to make them. We bought wax at the apo- 
thecary's, white wax, in round flat cakes, pleas- 
ant to nibble, and altogether gratifying, — 
wax, and chrome-yellow and carmine, the 
colors in powder. We put the wax in a 
pipkin (I always say " pipkin " when I have a 
chance, because it is such a charming word; 
but if my readers prefer "saucepan," let them 
have it by all means ! ) — we put it, I say, in 
a pipkin, and melted it. (For a pleasure 
wholly without alloy, I can recommend the 
poking and punching of half-melted wax.) 
Then, when it was ready, we stirred in the 
yellow powder, which produced a fine Bartlett 
color. Then we poured the mixture — oh, 
joy ! — into the two pear or peach shaped 
halves of the plaster mold, and clapped them 
together; and when the pear or peach was 
cool and dry, we took a camel's-hair brush 
and painted a carmine cheek on one side. 
I do not say that this was art, or advance- 
ment of culture ; I do not say that its results 
were anything but hideous and abnormal ; 



1/0 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

but I do maintain that it was a deliorhtful 
and enchanting amusement. And if there 
was a point of rapture be}ond this, it was 
the coloring of melted wax to a delicate rose 
hue, and dipping into it a dear little spaddle 
(which, be it explained to the ignorant, is a 
flat disk with a handle to it) and taking out 
liquid rose-petals, which hardened in a few 
minutes and were rolled delicatel)^ off with 
the finger. When one had enough (say, 
rather, when one could tear one's self away 
from the magic pipkin), one put the petals 
together ; and there you had a rose that was 
like nothing upon earth. 

After all, were wax flowers so much more 
hideous, I wonder, than some things one 
sees to-day ? Why is it that such a stigma 
attaches to the very name of them ? Why 
do not people go any longer to see the wax 
figures in the Boston Museum.? Perhaps 
they are not there now; perhaps they are 
grown forlorn and dilapidated — indeed, they 
never were very splendid ! — and ha\'e been 
hustled away into some dim lumber-room, 
from whose corners they glare out at the 



OUR TEACHERS. I/I 

errant call-boy of the theatre, and frighten 
him into fits. Daniel Lambert, in scarlet 
waistcoat and knee-breeches ! the " Drunk- 
ard's Career," the bare recollection of which 
brings a thrill of horror, — there was one 
child at least who regarded you as miracles 
of art ! 

Speaking of wax reminds me of Monsieur 

N , who gave us, I am inclined to think, 

our first French lessons, besides those we 
received from our mother. He was a very 
French Frenchman, with blond mustache 
and imperial waxed a la Louis Napoleon, 
and a military carriage. He had been a 
soldier, and taught fencing as well as French, 
though not to us. This unhappy gentleman 
had married a Smyrniote woman, out of grat- 
itude to her family, who had rescued him 
from some pressing danger. Apparently he 
did them a great service by marrying the 
young woman and taking her away, for she 
had a violent temper, — was, in short, a perfect 
vixen. The evils of this were perhaps less- 
ened by the fact that she could not speak 
French, while her husband had no knowl- 



172 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

edge of her native Greek. It is the simple 
truth that this singular couple in their dis- 
putes, which unfortunately were many, used 
often to come and ask our father to act as 

interpreter between them. Monsieur N 

himself was a kind nian, and a very good 
teacher. 

There is a tale told of a christeninor feast 
which he gave in honor of ,Candide, his eld- 
est child. Julia and Flossy were invited, and 
also the governess of the time, whoever she 
was. The company went in two hacks to 
the priest's house, where the ceremony was to 
be performed ; on the way the rival hackmen 
fell out, and jeered at each other, and, whip- 
ping up their lean horses, made frantic efforts 
each to obtain the front rank in the small 

cortege. Whereupon Monsieur N , very 

angry at this infringement of the dignity of 
the occasion, thrust his head out of tlie win- 
dow and shrieked to his hackman : — 

"Firts or sekind, vich you bleece ! " which 
delighted the children more than any other 
part of the entertainment. 

7 here was poor Miss R , whom I re- 



OUR TEACHERS. 173 

call with mingled dislike and compassion. 
She must have been very young, and she 
had about as much idea of managing chil- 
dren (we required a great deal of managing) 
as a tree mio:ht have. Her one idea of disci- 
pline was to give us " misdemeanors," which 
in ordinary speech were " black marks." 
What is it I hear her say in the monotonous 
sing-song voice which always exasperated 
us? — " Doctor, Laura has had fourteen mis- 
demeanors ! " Then Laura was put to bed, no 
doubt very properly; but she has always felt 
that she need not have had the " misdemean- 
ors" if the teaching had been a little different. 

Miss R it was who took away the glass 

eye-cup ; therefore I am aware that I cannot 
think of her with clear and unprejudiced 
mind. But she must have had bitter times 
with us, poor thing! I can distinctly remem- 
ber Flossy urging Harry, with fiery zeal, not 
to recite his geography lesson, — I cannot 
imagine why. 

Miss R often rocked in the junk with 

us. That reminds me that I promised to 
describe the junk. But how shall I picture 



174 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

that perennial fount of joy? It was cres- 
cent-shaped, or rather it was like a lon- 
gitudinal sHce cut out of a watermelon. 
Magnify the slice a hundred-fold ; put seats 
up and down the sides, with iron bars in 
front to hold on by ; set it on two grooved 
rails and paint it red, — there you have the 
junk! Nay! you have it not entire; for it 
should be filled with rosy, shouting children, 
standing or sitting, holding on by the bars 
and rocking with might and main, — 

" Yo-ho! Here we go! 
Up and down ! Heigh-ho ! " 

Why are there no junks nowadays ? Surely 
it would be better for us, body and mind, if 
there were ; for, as for the one, the rocking 
exercised every muscle in the whole bodily 
frame, and as for the other, black Care could 
not enter the junk (at least he did not), 
nor weariness, nor "shadow of annoyance." 
There ought to be a junk on Boston Com- 
mon, free to all, and half a dozen in Central 
Park ; and I hope every young person who 
reads these words will suG:G:cst this device to 
his parents or guardians. 



OUR TEACHERS. 1 75 

But teaching is not entirely confined to 
the archery practice of the young idea ; and 
any account of our teachers would be in- 
complete without mention of our dancing- 
master, — of the dancing-master, for there was 
but one. You remember that the dandy in 
" Punch," being asked of whom he buys his 
hats, replies : " Scott. Is there another fel- 
lah ? " Even so it would be difficult for the 
Boston generation of middle or elder life to 
acknowledge that there could have been 
" another fellah " to teach dancing besides 
Lorenzo Papanti. Who does not remember 
— nay ! who could ever forget — that tall, 
graceful figure ; that marvellous elastic 
glide, like a wave flowing over glass ? Who 
could ever forget the shrewd, kindly smile 
when he was pleased, the keen lightning 
of his glance when angered ? What if he 
did rap our toes sometimes till the tim- 
orous wept, and those of stouter heart 
flushed scarlet, and clenched their small 
hands and inly vowed revenge ? No doubt 
we richly deserved it, and it did us 
good. 



1/6 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

If I were to hear a certain strain played 
in the desert of Sahara or on the plains of 
Idaho, I should instantly " forward and back 
and cross over," — and so, I warrant, would 
most of my generation of Boston people. 
There is one ijrave and courteous 2:entleman 
of my acquaintance, whom to see dance the 
shawl-dance with his fairy sister was a dream 
of poetry. As for the gavotte — O beautiful 
Amy ! O lovely Alice ! I see you now, with 
your short, silken skirts flowing out to ex- 
treme limit of crinoline ; with your fair locks 
confined by the discreet net, sometimes of 
brown or scarlet chenille, sometimes of finest 
silk ; with snowy stockings, and slippers 
fastened by elastic bands crossed over the 
foot and behind the ankle ; with arms and 
neck bare. If your daughters to-day chance 
upon a photograph of you taken in those 
days, they laugh and ask mamma how she 
could wear such queer things, and make such 
a fright of herself! But I remember how 
lovely you were, and how perfectly you al- 
ways dressed, and with what exquisite grace 
you danced the gavotte. 




Laur-a E. Richards. 



OUR TEACHERS. 1 79 

So, I think, all we who jumped and changed 
our feet, who pirouetted and chasseed under 
Mr. Papanti, owe him a debt of gratitude. 
His hall was a paradise, the stiff little dress- 
ing-room, with its rows of shoe-boxes, the 
antechamber of delight, — and thereby hangs 
a tale. The child Laura grew up, and mar- 
ried one who had jumped and changed his 
feet beside her at Papanti's, and they two 
went to Europe and saw many strange lands 
and things ; and it fell upon a time that 
they were storm-bound in a little wretch of 
a grimy steamer in the Gulf of Corinth. 
With them was a travelling companion who 
also had had the luck to be born in Boston, 
and to go to dancing-school ; the other pas- 
sengers were a Greek, an Italian, and — I 
think the third was a German, but as he was 
seasick it made no difference. Three days 
were we shut up there while the storm raged 
and bellowed, and right thankful we were for 
the snug little harbor which stretched its 
protecting arms between us and the white 
churning waste of billows outside the bar. 

We played games to make the time pass ; 



l8o WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

we talked endlessl}', — and in the course of 
talk it naturally came to pass that we told of 
our adxenturcs, and where we came from, 
and, in short, who we were. The Greek 
gentleman turned out to be an old acquaint- 
ance of our father, and was greatly overjoyed 
to see me, and told me many interesting 
things about the old fighting-days of the 
revolution. The Italian spoke little during 
this conversation, but when he heard the 
word " Boston " he pricked up his ears ; and 
when a pause came, he asked if we came 
from Boston. " Yes," we all answered, with 
the inward satisfaction which every Bosto- 
nian feels at being able to make the reply. 
And had we ever heard, in Boston, he went 
on to inquire, of " un certo Papanti, maestro 
di ballo.'*" " Heard of him ! " cried the three 
dancing-school children, — "we never heard 
of any one else ! " Thereupon ensued much 
delighted questioning and counter-question- 
ing. This gentleman came from Leghorn, 
Mr. Papanti's native city. He knew his 
family ; they were excellent people. Lorenzo 
himself he had never seen, as he left Italy so 



OUR TEACHERS. iBl 

many years ago ; but reports had reached 
Leghorn that he was very successful, — that 
he taught the best people (O Beacon 
street ! O purple windows and brown-stone 
fronts, I should think so !) ; that he had in- 
vented " un piano sopra molle," a floor on 
springs. Was this true? Whereupon we 
took up our parable, and unfolded to the 
Livornese mind the glory of Papanti, till 
he fairly glowed with pride in his famous 
fellow-townsman. 

And, finally, was not this a pleasant little 
episode in a storm-bound steamer in the 
Gulf of Corinth? 



CHAPTER IX. 



OUR FRIENDS. 



We had so many friends that I hardly know 
where to begin. First of all, perhaps, I should 
put the dear old Scotch lady whom we called 
" D, D." She had another name, but that is 
nobody's business but her own. D. D. was a 
thousand years old. She always said so when 
we asked her age, and she certainly ought to 
have known. No one would have thought it 
to look at her, for she had not a single gray 
hair, and her eyes were as bright and black 
as a young girl's. One of the pleasantest 
things about her was the way she dressed, in 
summer particularly. She wore a gown of 
white dimity, always spotlessly clean, made 
with a single plain skirt, and a jacket. The 
jacket was a little open in front, showing a 
handkerchief of white net fastened with a 
brooch of hair in the shape of a harp. 



OUR FRIENDS. 1 83 

Fashions made no difference to D. D. 
People might wear green or yellow or pur- 
ple, as they pleased, — she wore her white 
dimity; and we children knew instinctively 
that it was the prettiest and most becoming 
dress that she could have chosen. 

Another wonderful thing about D. D. was 
her store-closet. There never was such a 
closet as that ! It was all full of glass jars, 
and the jars were full of cinnamon and nut- 
meg and cloves and raisins, and all manner 
of good things. Yes, and they were not 
screwed down tight, as jars are likely to be 
nowadays ; but one could take off the top, 
and see what was inside ; and if it was cin- 
namon, one might take even a whole stick, 
and D. D. would not mind. Sometimes a 
friend of hers who lived at the South would 
send her a barrel of oranges (she called it a 
" bar'l of awnges," because she was Scotch, 
and we thought it sounded a great deal pret- 
tier than the common way), and then we had 
glorious times; for D. D. thought oranges 
were very good for us, and we thought so 
too. Then she had some very delightful and 



1 84 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

interesting drawers, full of old daguerreo- 
types and pieces of coral, and all kinds of 
alicumtweezles. Have I explained before 
that " alicumtweezles " are nearly the same 
as " picknickles " and " bucknickles " ? 

D. D.'s son was a gallant young soldier, 
and it was his hair that she wore in the 
harp-shaped brooch. Many of the daguer- 
reotypes were of him, and he certainly was 
as handsome a fellow as any mother could 
wish a son to be. When we went to take 
tea with D. D., which was quite often, we 
always looked over her treasures, and asked 
the same questions over and over, the dear 
old lady never losing patience with us. And 
such jam as we had for tea! D. D.'s jams 
and jellies were famous, and she often made 
our whole provision of sweet things for the 
winter. Then we were sure of having the 
best quince marmalade and the clearest jelly ; 
w^hile as for the peach marmalade — no words 
can describe it ! 

D. D. was a wonderful nurse; and when 
we were ill she often came and helped our 
mother in taking care of us. Then she 



OUR FRIENDS. 185 

would sing us her song, — a song that no 
one but D. D. and the fortunate children 
who had her for a friend ever heard. It is 
such a good song that I must write it down, 
being very sure that D. D. would not care. 

" There was an old man, and he was mad, 
And he ran up the steeple ; 
He took off his great big hat, 
And waved it over the people," 

To D. D, we owe the preservation of one 
of Laura's first compositions, written when 
she was ten vears old. She orave it to the 
good lady, who kept it for many years in her 
treasure-drawer till Laura's own children 
were old enough to read it. It is a story, 
and is called — 

LOST AND FOUND. 

Marion Gray, a lovely girl of thirteen, one day 
tied on her gypsy hat, and, singing a merry song, 
bade good-by to her mother, and ran quickly 
toward the forest. She was the youngest daugh- 
ter of Sir Edward Gray, a celebrated nobleman in 
great favor with the king, and consequently Marion 
had everything she wished for. When she reached 



1 86 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

the wood she set her basket down under a chest- 
nut-tree, and chmbing up into the branches she 
shook them till the ripe fruit came tumbling down. 
She then jumped down, and having filled her bas- 
ket was proceeding to another tree, when all of a 
sudden a dark-looking man stepped out, who, when 
she attempted to fly, struck her severely with a 
stick, and she fell senseless to the ground. 

Meanwhile all was in confusion at the manor- 
house. Marion's faithful dog Carlo had seen the 
man lurking in the thicket, and had tried to warn 
his mistress of the danger. But seeing she did not 
mind, the minute he saw the man prepare to spring 
out he had run to the house. He made them under- 
stand that some one had stolen Marion. " Who, 
Carlo, who?" exclaimed the agonized mother. 
Carlo instantly picked up some A-B-C blocks 
which lay on the floor, and putting together the 
letters that form the word " Gypsies," looked up at 
his master and wagged his tail. " The Gypsies ! " 
exclaimed Sir Edward ; " alas ! if the gypsies have 
stolen our child, we shall never see her again." 
Nevertheless they searched and searched the wood, 
but no trace of her was to be found. 

" I lush ! here she is ! Is n't she a beaut)'? " 

" Yes! but what is her name? " 

" Marion Gray. I picked her up in the wood. 



OUR FRIENDS. 1 8/ 

A splendid addition to our train, for she can beg 
charity and a night's lodging; and then the easiest 
thing in the world is just to find out where they 
keep the key, and let us in. Hush! hush! she's 
coming to." 

These words were spoken by a withered hag of 
seventy and the man who had stolen her. Slowly 
Marion opened her eyes, and what was her horror 
to find herself in a gypsy camp ! 

I will skip over the five long years of pain and 
suffering, and come to the end of my story. Five 
years have passed, and the new king sits on his 
royal throne, judging and condemning a band of 
gypsies. They are all condemned but one young 
girl, who stands with downcast eyes before him ; 
but when she hears her doom, she raises her dark 
flashing eyes on the king. A piercing shriek is 
heard, the crown and sceptre roll down the steps 
of the throne, and Marion Gray is clasped in her 
father's arms 1 

Another dear friend was Miss Mary. She 
was a small, brisk woman, with " New Eng- 
land " written all over her. She used to 
stay with us a good deal, helping my mother 
in household matters, or writing for our 
father; and we all loved her dearly. She 



1 88 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

had the most beautiful hair, masses and 
masses of it, of a deep auburn, and waving 
in a lovely fashion. She it was who used to 
say, "Hurrah for Jackson!" whenever any- 
thing met her special approval ; and we all 
learned to say it too, and to this day some 
of us cheer the name of " Old Hickory," 
who has been in his grave these fifty years. 
Miss Mar)' came of seafaring people, and 
had many strange stories of wreck and tem- 
pest, of which we were never weary. Miss 
Mary's energy was untiring, her activity un- 
ceasinor. She used to make Ions: woodland 
expeditions with us in the woods around 
the Valley, leading the way " over hill, over 
dale, thorough bush, thorough brier," finding 
all manner of wild-wood treasures, — creep- 
ing-jenny, and ferns and mosses without 
end, — which were brought home to decorate 
the parlors. She knew the name of every 
plant, and what it was good for. She knew 
when the barberries must be gathered, and 
when the mullein flowers were ready. She 
walked so fast and so far that she wore out an 
unreasonable number of shoes in a season. 



OUR FRIENDS. 1 89 

Speaking of her shoes reminds me that 
at the fire of which I spoke in a previous 
chapter, at the Institution for the BHnd, Miss 
Mary was the first person to give the alarm. 
She had on a brand-new pair of morocca 
sHppers when the fire broke out, and by the 
time it was extinguished they were in holes. 
This will give you some idea of Miss Marys 
energy. 

Then there was Mr. Ford, one of the very 
best of our friends. He was a sort of facto- 
tum of our father, and, like The Bishop in 
the " Bab Ballads," was " short and stout and 
round-about, and zealous as could be." We 
were very fond of trotting at his heels, and 
loved to pull him about and tease him, which 
the good man never seemed to resent. Once, 
however, we carried our teasing too far, as 
you shall hear. One day our mother was 
sitting quietly at her writing, thinking that 
the children were all happy and good, and 
possessing her soul in patience. Suddenly 
to her appeared Julia, her hair flying, eyes 
wide open, mouth ditto, — the picture of 
despair. 



190 U'HEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

" Oh, Mamma! " gasped the child, " I have 
done the most dreadful thing ! Oh, the most 
dreadful, terrible thing!" 

" What is it ? " exclaimed our mother, drop- 
ping her pen in distress ; " what have you 
done, dear ? Tell me quickly ! " 

" Oh, I cannot tell you ! " sobbed the child; 
" I cannot ! " 

" Have you set the house on fire? " cried 
our mother. 

" Oh, worse than that ! " gasped poor Julia, 
" much worse ! " 

" Have you dropped the baby ? " 

" Worse than that ! " 

Now, there was nothing worse than drop- 
ping the baby, so our mother began to feel 
relieved. 

" Tell me at once, Julia," she said, " what 
you have done ! " 

" I — I — " sobbed poor Julia, — "I pulled 
— I pulled — off — Mr. Ford s wig ! "" 

There were few people we lo\cd better 
than Tomty, the gardener. This dear, good 
man must have been a martyr to our pranks, 
and the only wonder is that he was able to 



OUR FRIENDS. 19 1 

do any gardening at all. It was " Tomty " 
here and " Tomty " there, from morning till 
night. When Laura wanted her bonnet- 
^strings tied (oh, that odious little bonnet! 
with the rows of pink and green quilled rib- 
bon which was always coming off), she never 
thought of going into the house to Mary, 
though Mary was good and kind too, — she 
always ran to Tomty, who must " lay down 
the shovel and the hoe," and fashion bow- 
knots with his big, clumsy, good-natured 
fingers. When Harry was playing out in 
the hot sun without a hat, and Mary called 
to him to come in like a good boy and get 
his hat, did he go ? Oh, no ! He tumbled 
the potatoes or apples out of Tomty's basket, 
and put that on his head instead of a hat, and 
it answered just as well. 

Poor, dear Tomty ! He went to California 
in later years, and was cruelly murdered by 
some base wretches for the sake of a little 
money which he had saved. 

Somehow we had not very many friends 
of our own age. I suppose one reason was 
that we were so many ourselves that there 
were always enough to have a good time. 



192 ll'JIEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

There were one or two little girls who 
used to go with us on the famous maying- 
parties, which were great occasions. On 
May-day morning we would take to ourselves 
baskets, — some full of goodies, some empty, 
— and start for a pleasant wooded place not 
far from Green Peace. Here, on a sunny 
slope where the savins grew not too thickly 
to prevent the sun from shining merrily down 
on the mossy sward, we would pitch our tent 
(only there was no tent), and prepare to be 
perfectly happy. We gathered such early 
flowers as were to be found, and made gar- 
lands of them ; we chose a queen and 
crowned , her ; and then we had a feast, 
which was really the object of the whole 
expedition. 

It was tlie proper thing to buy certain 
viands for this feast, the home dainties being 
considered not sufificiently rare. 

Well, we ate our oranges and nibbled our 
cocoanut, and the older ones drank the milk, 
if there was any in the nut: this was con- 
sidered the very height of luxury, and the 
little ones knew it was too much for them 



OUR FRIENDS. 1 93 

to expect. I cannot remember whether we 
were generally ill after these feasts, but I 
think it highly probable. 

In mentioning our friends, is it right to 
pass over the good " four-footers," who were 
so patient with us, and bore with so many 
of our vagaries ? Can we ever forget Oggy 
the Steamboat, so called from the loudness 
of her purring? Do not some of us still 
think with compunction of the day when 
this good cat w^as put in a tin pan, and cov- 
ered over with a pot-lid, while on the lid was 
set her deadly enemy Ella, the fat King 
Charles spaniel ? What a snarling ensued ! 
what growls, hisses, yells, mingled with the 
clashing of tin and the " unseemly laughter" 
of naughty children ! 

And Lion, the good Newfoundland dog, 
who let us ride on his back — when he was 
in the mood, and tumbled us off when he 
was not! He was a dear dog; but Fannie, 
his mate, was anything but amiable, and 
sometimes gave sore offence to visitors by 
snapping at their heels and growling. 

But if the cats and dogs suffered from us, 



194 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

we suffered from Jose! O Jose! what a 
tyrannous little beast you were ! Never was 
a brown donkey prettier, I am quite sure ; 
never did a brown donkey have his own wa)- 
so completely. 

Whether a child could take a ride or not 
depended entirely on whether Jose was in 
the mood for it. If not, he trotted a little 
way till he got the child alone ; and then 
he calmly rubbed off his rider against a tree 
or fence, and trotted away to the stable. Of 
course this was when we were very little ; but 
by the time the little ones were big enough 
to manage him Jose was dead ; so some of us 
never " got even with him," as the boys say. 
When the dearest uncle in the world sent us 
the donkey-carriage, things went better; for 
the obstinate little brown gentleman could 
not get rid of that, of course, and there 
were many delightful drives, with much jing- 
ling of harness and all manner of style and 
splendor. 

These were some of our friends, two-footers 
and four-footers. There were many others, 
of course, but time and space fail to tell of 



OUR FRIENDS. ^95 

them. After all, perhaps they were just like 
other children's friends. I must not weary 
my readers by rambling on indefinitely m 
these long-untrodden paths ; but I wish other 
children could have heard Oggy purr ! 



CHAPTER X. 

OUR GUESTS. 

Many interesting visitors came and went, 
both at Green Peace and the Valley, — 
many more than I can recollect. The visit 
of Kossuth, the great Hungarian patriot, 
made no impression upon me, as I was only 
a year old when he came to this country ; 
but there was a great reception for him at 
Green Peace, and many people assembled 
to do honor to the bra\'e man who had tried 
so hard to free his country from the Austrian 
yoke, and had so nearly succeeded. I re- 
member a certain hat, which we younger 
children firmly believed to have been his, 
thousfh I have since been informed that we 
were mistaken. At all events, we used to 
play with the hat (I wonder whose it was!) 
under this impression, and it formed an 



OUR GUESTS. 197 

important element in "dressing up," which 
was one of our chief delights. 

One child would put on Kossuth's hat, 
another Lord Byron's helmet, — a superb af- 
fair of steel and gold, which had been given 
to our father in Greece, after Byron's death 
(we ought not to have been allowed to 
touch so precious a relic, far less to dress 
up in it !) ; while a third would appropriate 
a charming little square Polish cap of fine 
scarlet, which ought to have belonged to 
Thaddeus of Warsaw, but did not, I fear. 

What pleasant things we had to dress up 
in! There was our father's wedding-coat, 
bright blue, with brass buttons; and the 
waistcoat he had worn with it, white satin 
with raised velvet flowers, — such a fine 
waistcoat! There were two embroidered 
crape gowns which had been our grand- 
mother's, with waists a few inches long, and 
long, skimp skirts ; and the striped blue and 
yellow moire, which our mother had worn 
in some private theatricals, — that was be- 
yond description! And the white gauze 
with gold flounces — oh ! and the peach- 
blossom silk with flowers all over it — ah ! 



198 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

Hut this is a digression, and has nothing 
whatever to do with our guests, who never 
played "dressing up," that I can remember. 

One of our most frequent visitors at Green 
Peace was the great statesman and patriot, 
Charles Sumner. He was a very dear friend 
of our father, and they loved to be together 
whenever the strenuous business of their 
lives would permit. 

We children used to call Mr. Sumner" the 
Harmless Giant; " and indeed he was very 
kind to u^, and had always a pleasant word 
for us in that deep, melodious voice which 
no one, once hearing it, could ever forget. 
He towered above us to what seemed an 
enormous height ; yet we were told that he 
stood six feet in his stockings, — no more. 
This impression being made on Laura's 
mind, she was used to employ the great 
senator as an imaginary foot-rule (six-foot 
rule, I should say), and, until she was al- 
most a woman grown, would measure a 
thing in her own mind by saying " tw'o feet 
higher than Mr. Sumner," or " twice as high 
as Mr. Summer," as the case might be. I 



OUR GUESTS. 199 

can remember him carrying the baby Maud 
on his shoulder, and bowing his lofty crest 
to pass through the doorway. Sometimes 
his mother, Madam Sumner, came with him, 
a gracious and charming old lady. I am 
told that on a day when she was spend- 
ing an hour at Green Peace, and sitting in 
the parlor window with our mother, Laura 
felt it incumbent upon her to entertain the 
distinguished visitor ; so, being arrayed in 
her best white frock, she took up her station 
on the gravel path below the window, and 
filling a little basket with gravel, proceeded 
to pour it over her head, exclaiming, " Mit 
Humner ! hee my ektibiton ! " This meant 
" exhibition." Laura could not pronounce 
the letter .S" in childhood's happy hour. 
" Mamma," she would say, if she saw our 
mother look grave, " Id you had ? Why id 
you had 1 " and then she would bring a doll's 
dish, or it might be a saucepan, and give it 
to her mother and say, with infinite satisfac- 
tion, " Dere ! 'mooge you'helf wid dat ! " 

Another ever welcome guest was John A. 
Andrew, the great War Governor, as we 



200 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

loved to call him. He was not governor in 
those days, — that is, when I first remember 
him ; but he was then, as always, one of the 
most delightful of men. Who else could tell 
a story with such exquisite humor } The 
stories themselves were better than any 
others, but his way of telling them set every 
word in gold. The very sound of his voice 
made the air brighter and warmer, and his 
own delightful atmosphere of sunny geniality 
went always with him. That was a wonder- 
ful evening when at one of our parties some 
scenes from Thackeray's " The Rose and 
the Rins: " were 2:iven. Our mother was 
Countess Gruffanuff, our father Kutasoff 
Hedzoff ; Governor Andrew took the part 
of Prince Bulbo, while Flossy made a 
sprightly Angelica, and Julia as Betsinda 
was a vision of rarest beauty. I cannot 
remember who was Prince Giglio, but the 
figure of Bulbo, with closely curling hair, 
his fine face aglow with merriment, and the 
mao:ic rose in his buttonhole, comes dis- 
tinctly before me. 

Who were the guests at those dinner- 



OUR GUESTS. 20 1 

parties so well remembered ? Alas ! I know 
not. Great people they often were, famous 
men and women, who talked, no doubt, bril- 
liantly and delightfully. But is it their con- 
versation which lingers like a charm in my 
memory ? Again, alas ! my recollection is 
of finger-bowls, crimson and purple, which 
sans beneath the wetted fins^er of some 
kindly elder ; of almonds and raisins, and 
bonbons mystic, wonderful, all gauze and 
tinsel and silver paper, with fiat pieces of 
red sugar within. The red sugar was some- 
thing of an anticlimax after the splendors 
of its envelope, being insipidly sweet, with no 
special flavor. The scent of coffee comes 
back to me, rich, delicious, breathing of " the 
golden days of good Haroun Alraschid." 
We were never allowed to drink coffee or 
tea ; but standing by our mother's chair, just 
before saying good-night, we received the 
most exquisite dainty the world afforded, — 
a " coffee-duck," which to the is^norant is 
explained to be a lump of sugar dipped in 
coffee (black coffee, bien entefidu) and held 
in the amber liquid till it begins to melt 



202 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

in delicious " honeycomb " (this was prob- 
ably the true ambrosia of the gods) ; and 
then we said good-night, and — and — went 
and begged the cook for a " whip," or some 
" floating-island," or a piece of frosted cake ! 
Was it strange that occasionally, after one 
of these feasts, Laura could not sleep, and 
was smitten with the " terror by night " (it 
was generally a locomotive which was com- 
ing in at the window to annihilate her ; Julia 
was the one who used to weep at night for 
fear of foxes), and would come trotting down 
into the lighted drawing-room, among all 
the silks and satins, arrayed in the simple 
garment known as a " leg-nightgown," de- 
manding her mother ? Ay, and I remember 
that she always got her mother, too. 

But these guests ? I remember the great 
Professor Agassiz, with his wise, kindly face 
and genial smile. I can see him putting 
sugar into his coffee, lump after lump, till it 
stood up above the liquid like one of his own 
oflaciers. I remember all the " Abolition " 
leaders, for our own parents were stanch 
Abolitionists, and worked heart and soul for 



OUR GUESTS. 203 

the cause of freedom, I remember when 
Swedish ships came into Boston Harbor, 
probably for the express purpose of filHng 
our parlors with fair-haired officers, wonder- 
ful, magnificent, shining with epaulets and 
buttons. There may have been other 
reasons for the visit ; there may have been 
deep political designs, and all manner of 
mysteries relating to the peace of nations 
I know not. But I know that there was a 
little midshipman in white trousers, who 
danced with Laura, and made her a bow 
afterward and said, " I tanks you for de 
polska." He was a dear little midshipman ! 
There was an admiral too, who corresponded 
more or less with Southey's description, — 

" And last of all an admiral came, 
A terrible man with a terrible name, — 
A name which, you all must know very well, 
Nobody can speak, and nobody can spell." 

The admiral said to Harry, " I understand 
vou shall not oo to sea in future times ? " 
and that is all I remember about him. 

I remember Charlotte Cushman, the great 
actress and noble woman, who was a dear 



204 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

friend of our mother ; with a deep, vibrat- 
ing, melodious voice, and a strong, almost 
masculine face, which was full of wisdom 
and kindliness. 

I remember Edwin Booth, in the early 
days, when his brilliant genius and the 
splendor of his melancholy beauty were tak- 
ing all hearts by storm. He was very shy, 
this all-powerful Richelieu, this conquering 
Richard, this princely Hamlet. He came to 
a party given in his honor by our mother, 
and instead of talking to all the fine people 
who were dying for a word with him, he 
spent nearly the whole evening in a corner 
with little Maud, who enjoyed herself im- 
mensely. What wonder, when he made dolls 
for her out of handkerchiefs, and danced 
them with dramatic fervor } She was very 
gracious to Mr. Booth, which was a good 
thing ; for one never knew just what Maud 
would say or do. Truth compels me to add 
that she was the enfant terrible of the family, 
and that the elders always trembled when 
visitors noticed or caressed the beautiful 
child. 



OUR GUESTS. 205 

One day, I remember, a very wise and 
learned man came to Green Peace to see 
our mother, — a man of high reputation, and 
witlial a valued friend. He was fond of 
children, and took Maud on his knee, mean- 
ing to have a pleasant chat with her. But 
Maud fixed her great gray eyes on him, and 
surveyed him with an air of keen and hostile 
criticism. " What makes all those little red 
lines in your nose } " she asked, after an 

ominous silence. Mr. H , somewhat 

taken aback, explained as well as he could 
the nature of the veins, and our mother was 
about to send the child on some suddenly- 
bethought-of errand, wdien her clear, melo- 
dious voice broke out again, relentless, 
insistent : " Do you know, I think you are 
the ugliest man I ever saw in my life ! " 

" That will do, Maud ! " said Mr. H , 

putting her down from his knee. " You are 
charming, but you may go now% my dear." 
Then he and our mother both tried to be- 
come very much interested in metaphysics ; 
and next day he went and asked a mutual 
friend if he were really the ugliest man that 



206 WHEX I WAS YOUR AGE. 

ever was seen, telling her what Maud had 
said. 

Again, there was a certain acquaintance 
— loni!: since dead — who was in the habit 
of making interminable calls at Green Peace, 
and who would talk by the hour together 
without pausing. Our parents were often 
wearied by this gentleman's conversational 
powers, and one of them (let this be a 
warning to young and old) chanced one 
day to speak of him in Maud's hearing as 
" a great bore." This was enough ! The 
next time the unlucky talker appeared, the 
child ran up to him, and greeted him cor- 
dially with, " How do you do, bore ? Oli, 
you great bore ! " A quick-witted friend 
who was in the room instantly asked Mr. 

S if he had seen the copy of Snyder's 

" Boar Hunt " which our father had lately 
bought, thinking it better that he should 
fancy himself addressed as a beast of the 
forest than as Borus humaims ; but he kept 
his own counsel, and we never knew what he 
really thought of Maud's greeting. 

But of all visitors at either house, there 



OUR GUESTS. 207 

was one whom we loved more than all others 
put together. Marked with a white stone 
was the happy day which brought the won- 
derful uncle, the fairy godfather, the reali- 
zation of all that is delightful in man, to 
Green Peace or the Valley. Uncle Sam 
Ward ! — uncle by adoption to half the young 
people he knew, but our very own uncle, our 
mother's beloved brother. We might have 
said to him, with Shelley, — 



'a' 



" Rarely, rarely comest thou, 
Spirit of delight ! " 

for he was a busy man, and Washington was 
a long way off ; but when he did come, as 
I said, it was a golden day. We fairly 
smothered him, — each child wantino: to sit 
on his knee, to see his great watch, and the 
wonderful sapphire that he always wore on 
his little finger. Then he must sing for us ; 
and he would sing the old Studenten Lieder 
in his full, joyous voice; but he must always 
wind up with " Balzoroschko Schnego " (at 
least that is what it sounded like), a certain 
Polish drinking-song, in which he sneezed 



208 WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

and yodeled, and did all kinds of wonderful 
things. 

Then would come an hour of quiet talk 
with our mother, when we knew enough to 
be silent and listen, — feeling, perhaps, rather 
than realizing that it was not a common 
privilege to listen to such talk. 

" No matter how much I may differ from 
Sam Ward in principles or opinion," said 
Charles Sumner once, " when I have been 
with him five minutes, I forget everything 
except that he is the most delightful man 
in the world." 

Again (but this was the least part of the 
pleasure), he never came empty-handed. 
Now it was a basket of wonderful peaches, 
which he thought might rival ours; now 
a gold bracelet for a niece's wrist ; now a 
beautiful book, or a pretty dress-pattern that 
had caught his eye in some shop-window. 
Now he came direct from South America, 
bringing for our mother a silver pitcher 
which he had won as a prize at a shooting- 
match in Paraguay. One of us will never 
forget being waked in the gray dawn of a 



OUR GUESTS. 209 

summer morning at the Valley, by the sound 
of a voice singing outside, — will never for- 
get creeping to the window and peeping out 
through the blinds. There on the door-step 
stood the fairy uncle, with a great basket of 
peaches beside him ; and he was singing the 
lovely old French song, which has always 
since then seemed to me to belong to him : 

" Noble Chatelaine, 
Voyez notre peine, 
Et dans vos domaines 
Rendez charitd! 
Voyez le disgrace 
Qui nous menace, 
Et donnez. par grace, 
L'liospitalite! 
Toi que je revere, 
Entends ma priere. 
O Dieu tutelaire, 
Viens dans ta bonte. 
Pour sauver rinnocence. 
Et que ta puissance 
Un jour recompense 
L'hospitalitel '' 

There is no sweeter song. And do you 
think we did not tumble into our clothes 
and rush down, in wrappers, in petticoats, 
in whatever gown could be most quickly put 

14 



2IO WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE. 

on, and unbar the door, and bring the dear 
wanderer in, with joyful cries, with laughter, 
almost with tears of pure pleasure? 

Ah, that was "long ago and long ago;" 
and now the kind uncle, the great heart that 
overflowed with love and charity and good- 
will to all human kind, has passed through 
another door, and will not return! Be sure 
that on knocking at that white portal, he 
found hospitality within. 

And now it is time that these rambling 
notes should draw to a close. There are 
many things that I might still speak of. 
But, after all, long ago is long ago, and 
these glimpses of our happy childhood must 
necessarily be fragmentary and brief. I 
trust they may have given pleasure to some 
children. I wish all childhood might be as 
bright, as happy, as free from care or sorrow, 
as was ours. 

THE END. 



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